Star Wars: Heralds of the Force
by theklicktator
Summary: What if Anakin had convinced Ahsoka to stay in the Jedi Order? What if she in turn convinced him to stay in the light? Star Wars: Heralds of the Force is an alternate universe Star Wars tale where Anakin Skywalker never falls to the dark side, and leads the Jedi Order to new heights!
1. Prologue

"Ahsoka, wait!"

"Ahsoka, I need to talk to you!"

She stopped, unable to keep going, waiting for what seemed like her one and only friend to catch up.

"Why?" Anakin breathed, slightly winded as he sprinted after her, looking at her with all the hurt and betrayal she herself was feeling. "Why are you doing this?"

"The council didn't trust me!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms out wide to show her disgust before bringing them folded close to protect her. "So how can I trust myself?"

"What about me?" Anakin asked, still reeling from her decision to walk away. "I believed in you, I stood by you!"

"I know you believe in me Anakin, and I'm grateful for that." Ahsoka replied, without a hint of anger in her voice. "But this isn't about you. I can't stay here any longer."

"Not now." she finished quietly, turning away, unable to bear her master's look.

"The Jedi Order is your life." Anakin pleaded. "You can't just throw it away like this. Ahsoka, you are making a mistake!"

"Maybe, but I have to sort this out on my own." she replied curtly. "Without the Council, and without you."

"I understand." Anakin said. "More than you realize. I understand wanting to walk away from the Order."

"I know." came her reply, making Anakin wonder, if only for a moment, how much his Padawan truly saw in him.

As she turned to walk away, Anakin Skywalker felt that the moment was heavy with the Force. He did not know why, but what he and Ahsoka did next would affect the galaxy and all its many people. He could let her walk away, was more than tempted to in fact, but something in the back of his mind nagged at him. For a brief moment, the shadow that had hung over the Force since the start of the Clone Wars lifted from his mind, and he knew what he had to do.

"So stay. For me." he pleaded. "I can't do this without you. You know that. Sure, you're my Padawan, but you're also my friend, my companion, my partner in crime."

She stopped walking, and although he couldn't see it, a slight smirk was on Ahsoka's face as she was lost in happier times.

"Stay, Snips." he said softly. "You are more than just a student to me Ahsoka. I… I care about you."

And he meant it. Not romantically, but an affection born of companionship, shared adversity, and common understanding. During his early days in the Temple, Master Yoda had told him that friends were simply the same soul dwelling in different bodies. There was a bond in the Force between them, they both felt it. And that bond produced a simple, enduring love. Their lives were better for having each other in it, and he wouldn't let it go without a fight.

Neither, it seemed, did she.

"Alright." Ahsoka said, with a deep sigh. "I'll stay."

Skywalker's eyes shone brightly, a disbelieving smile etched across his face.

"You mean it?"

A smack on the shoulder was all he received.

"I do." she replied with a smile of her own, snatching her braid from his hand and attaching it back on her montrals. "But I'm never going to let you live this down."

The moment passed and all Anakin Skywalker could feel was a sense of relief. The bond between himself and Ahsoka hadn't been broken. And faintly, he thought he could feel the screams of a denied destiny.

The Force was truly with them today.


	2. Chapter 1: Shatterpoint

Chapter 1: Shatterpoint

Anakin paced back and forth across the High Council chamber, overcome with guilt and anxiety. The ordered spacing inside the chamber did little to quiet his mind, nor did staring out at the endless streams of Coruscanti traffic and analyzing its patterns. Tears fell freely from his face and splashed almost soundlessly on the floor. He was at war with himself.

He had informed Master Windu of Palpatine's confession to him. How he was a Sith lord, and how he had begged Anakin to use his power to save the ones he loved. Windu had told him to meditate in the Council Chambers, and so there he sat.

But he couldn't meditate. He couldn't clear his mind enough to achieve that serenity. His thoughts just kept drifting back to Padme.

_Did I just kill my wife?_

_I need his power. I can't let him die._

_Padme, I'm so sorry._

He heard the doors to the chamber hiss open, which caused him to spin around in horror. Was Master Windu back already?

But all he saw was Ahsoka Tano, looking at him with undisguised apprehension.

"Master, I heard what you did." she began. "That is so brave… I'm glad that dirty Sith is getting what's coming to him. I can't wait to see the look on his face when we bring him in and try him for-"

She paused as she saw Anakin's face. It was paler than a Miraxian ghost shroud, and even less lifelike. He looked like a man being torn in two.

"Master?" she asked.

"I'm afraid, Snips." he croaked hoarsely. "I've made a terrible mistake."

"What is it Anakin?" came Ahsoka's reply.

"I'm married." he admitted, feeling the weight lifted off his shoulders as he did. Normally, he never would have said such things, even to Ahsoka, but recent events had just about removed all rationality and subtlety from his arsenal. He needed to let this out.

Deafening silence was her only response.

"We married soon after the war started, on Naboo." he continued. "We loved each other, and things were good for so long. I would slip out to see her in the Senate, and she would visit me in the Temple under the guise of diplomacy."

It dawned on Ahsoka who he was talking about. She cursed at herself for not seeing it sooner. It seems that there was more to her master than she first thought.

"And now she's *pregnant*." he continued, his voice cracking. "Visions of her dying in childbirth plague me, and Chancellor Palpatine has promised me that he has the power to save her from death. And I just sent Master Windu to stop him. What if the Chancellor dies? What if everything I've done has been wrong. I just don't know anymore."

Ahsoka just looked at him, feeling anger, pity, and sympathy for her master all in equal measure. Her master had betrayed much of what the Order stood for, but was that Anakin's fault, or the Jedi? Her own misgivings with the Council were fresh in her mind, and she could hardly blame him for his own questioning.

But the Chancellor as the Sith Lord? Madness

Still, her master had taught her to trust in the Force, and so now that's what she would do. It didn't make sense, but she knew enough to know that was a fault on her end, not the Force's.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked, her lips peeled back in the just the barest hint of a cocky smile she so often wore. "We need to go to the Chancellor's office, immediately! I know the answers you seek will be there. I don't know how I know, but the Force wants us there. Trust me!"

Anakin was in no position to argue. Before he knew it, they were speeding through the Coruscanti traffic. His head was still spinning, but at least he felt sure of his purpose now. Ahsoka was right, the Force was leading him towards the Chancellor's office. He wasn't sure what it wanted from him, but he knew his destiny lay inside. He was glad he didn't have to face it alone.

As they passed in front of the Republic Executive Building, Anakin saw something that made his blood turn to ice: sheets of purple, fans of green, and swathes of blue light shone around a crimson flame that darted in between all of them with terrifying speed. The blues and the greens were soon snuffed out, a fact that gave Anakin no small amount of worry, as he knew those colors belonged to some of the greatest swordsmen in the entire order. Soon, it was just purple and red that fought for dominance. And through his vision in the Force, Anakin could see dark stormclouds brewing over both of them.

As he and Ahsoka barged into the room, they saw a sight that shook Anakin to his core. Master Windu had Chancellor Palpatine curled up against the corner of his broken window, held at lightsaber point.

"You Sith disease." Mace breathed, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

"Anakin, I told you this would happen!" Palpatine croaked, his voice weak and hoarse from the conflict he'd just fought. "The Jedi are taking over!"

"The oppression of the Sith will never return!" Mace shouted defiantly. "You have lost."

Palpatine's expression turned from one of frightened defeat to a glare of pure malice.

"No." he said, a smile creeping back onto his feature. "No, no, you have lost!"

Lightning of condensed hatred and evil poured from his fingertips. Mace barely caught it in time, reflecting it back upon the Sith Lord.

"Help me with this traitor, Anakin!" Palpatine cried, lightning still pouring from his hands.

"He is is the traitor Anakin, aaaah!" Mace cried as the effort became almost too much for him. Still, he appeared to be winning. The lightning was being reflected right back at its source, encasing Palpatine and cooking his flesh, burning his hair, and altering the very structure of his face. The Chancellor looked like a different man now. Very little of Palpatine seemed to remain.

_But it wasn't Palpatine_. Anakin thought. _This was the true face of Darth Sidious_.

"I have the power to save the ones you love!" he croaked, as the lightning coursed over his features.

"Don't listen to him!" Mace called, clearly exhausted. It was a battle of wills now. To see whether the light or the dark would prevail.

"I… I… I'm too weak." Sidious wailed, as he stopped his onslaught, collapsing back into his corner as his flesh cooked around him, giving off faint trails of smoke. "I'm too weak."

"It is over." Mace declared, his lightsaber once again leveled at his hated. "Foe. You will die, here and now."

"You can't." came Anakin's voice, surprising all present as they turned to look at him with stunned silence. "He must stand trial."

"He controls the courts, he's too dangerous to be kept alive!"

"Master Windu!" came Ahsoka's protest. "You can't! It's not the Jedi way! You do this, and you prove him right! Let this Sith trash stand before the courts, like I did. We can prove he was behind it all. The Clone Wars, the scheming, the assassinations on Senator Amidala, everything!"

And like a fog being lifted, Anakin saw that she was right. If Sidious had plotted the Clone Wars, he'd been behind all the attempts on Padme. Rage boiled inside him, but unlike on the _Invisible Hand_, he suppressed it and let it flow out of him. Justice needed to be had here, not vengeance.

"Master Windu, please. I will help you bring him in, but do not kill him. It is not the Jedi way."

A deactivated lightsaber was Windu's only response.

"Get up Chancellor. By the power of the Jedi Council, and the Will of the Force, you are under arrest."

Sidious' sinister smile faded from his ruined face. His scheme had failed. Anakin was in the light once more. There was nothing left to be done.

Except…

"I am the Sith'ari, the one destined to destroy the Jedi." he snarled, whipping out an undistinguished Kaminoan comlink from within the pockets on his robe. "You cannot stop what is to come."

"What the- AAAAAARGH!" Mace cried, as Sidious produced a second, hidden lightsaber from his sleeves and lopped of Windu's hand that firmly gripped his weapon.

"Execute Order 66." Sidious snarled, letting the communicator hit the floor with a satisfied smirk. Anakin's lightsaber erupted through his chest a nanosecond later, but as the Dark Lord of the Sith fell to the floor, there was nothing but a smile on his face.

"You… are too late. Jedi." he spat as he took one final, rasping breath and closed his eyes for one last time.

Darth Sidious, Lord of the Sith and the hidden architect of the Clone Wars, was dead.

The three Jedi stood around in stunned silence. One nursing the stump of a wound where his hand once was. One simply stood there mouth agape at what just occurred in front of her. And the final Jedi slumped down on the floor, next to the body he had just killed in fulfillment of a prophecy that had hung under his head for his entire life, wondering what he had just done and whether he had killed his only chance at saving his wife.

"We must get back to the Temple, masters." Ahsoka said, breaking the heavy silence in the room. "The rest of the Council should be informed."

"I will go." Anakin said, rising from the floor. The flight back to the Temple would be a good excuse to go see Padme, to make sure she was alright. "Take Master Windu and find a medical a medical droid. He needs care immediately. After that, go to the Temple and-"

He dropped to the floor suddenly, surprising even himself with his fall. It felt as if his soul was being torn into thousands of pieces, as bright lights in the Force were snuffed out one by one. He screamed and screamed as he saw Master Windu fall to the floor next to him, his eyes wide with shock and his face as pale as Anakin's as they both experienced the same thing.

They were feeling the death of thousands of Jedi. All at once, across the entire galaxy.

"Master!" Ahsoka screamed, running to help him up from the ground, but Anakin was already rising on his own and motioned her over to Master Windu. Something terrible had just happened, something that shook the Force to its very core. He had a bad feeling about this.

And as Anakin Skywalker sat on the floor of the former office of the Supreme Chancellor, he had no idea what would happen next, only that he should trust in the Force to guide him.


	3. Chapter 2: A Hidden Council

**Chapter 2: A Hidden Council**

Location: Kedrenos, former mining colony of the Galactic Republic.

A desolate, rock drifted through the cold, empty void of space, seemingly devoid of all life, as its small mining base was long past its prime, having last produced valuable ore for the Galactic Republic before the reign of Chancellor Valorum. The Czerka corporation had mined the asteroid for generations, before finally exhausting the mineral wealth of the rock and simply abandoned the place. For most of the galaxy, Kedrenos base was just another forgotten facility amongst tens of thousands similar to it.

Which made it perfect for its purpose today.

Upon the asteroid, a hooded figure finished up the last of the healing they could perform upon their companion. The flight from Kashyyyk had been perilous, and his charge had suffered several blaster wounds that would have been lethal if not tended to properly. Kedrenos was still on some of the older Jedi archives, so the hooded figure had made the decision to stop there and recover whatever supplies he could. As he patched up his companion, he signaled for the rendezvous to be changed. Their hyperdrive had been damaged in the escape, requiring for another ship to reach their location. Their contact would have to come to them.

A blip soon appeared on their ship's scanners. Something had emerged from hyperspace. They were rescued.

The Corellian CR90 was the latest in diplomatic convenience and luxury. At a little over 150 meters in length, it served as one of the most in-demand vehicles for Senators that wished to travel in their work for the Galactic Senate. Built with only the finest of woods, durasteel, and technology that money could buy, it served its masters well, no matter what the occasion was.

The occasion Bail Organa had for the _Tantive IV_ at the moment was to pick up an old friend.

"Master Kenobi." Bail said with a bow as Obi-Wan Kenobi entered onto his ship. "Thank goodness you have arrived."

He looked apprehensively at the figure Obi-Wan carried in his arms. "Were you… successful?"

"I was." Obi-Wan replied with a tired look on his face. In his arms, he carried Master Luminara Unduli. She was weak, and still flirted on the edge of death even after Obi-Wan's efforts to heal her, but she lived nonetheless.

Master Yoda's information had been accurate. Luminara had been held captive by the clones in her battalion, but they had been unorganized, ill equipped to deal with a Jedi Master such as himself. A distraction with the Force here, a dash between shadows there, and soon he had been in front of her holding cell. It was odd; After three years of hard fighting, he was intimately familiar with the talents of the Clone Army. If they had truly been fighting at their peak, Obi-Wan wouldn't have stood a chance once they confronted him after he released Luminara from her bonds. But the clones had been in a trance, their movements were uncoordinated and they fought like recruits fresh out of the academy. It didn't make sense. None of it did. But Obi-Wan Kenobi had learned long ago to trust in the Force.

"Master Unduli lives, but she will need further attention." he continued, snapping himself out of his reverie. Indeed, Luminara was stirring in his arms, but her motions were feverish, and she seemed to be in the midst of a delirium. The clones, or whomever was in charge of them now, had deprived her of nutrients, and they had arrived on Kedrenos three centuries too late to find any use for the foodstuffs left behind. She lived for now, but further medical care was required.

Medical droids came and carried her. Obi-Wan looked on, his brow furrowed in concern. Before catching up to Senator Organa.

"I have been out of contact for weeks, how fares the Republic?" he asked, almost worried to know the answer.

"That… is a complicated question." Senator Organa began. "Let's go to the conference room. the others will be waiting for us there."

The conference room of the Tantive IV was sparse, yet elegant. Perfectly fitting for the persona and ethos that Bail Organa wished to put out into the galaxy. The table was made of solid Kriin-wood and was surrounded by eight state of the art communication chairs, inlaid with sculptigel and designed for comfort, no matter the alien biology or preferences. In addition, Senator Organa had retrofitted each of them with a holocommunicator so that he could be in contact with whomever he needed to at any time he so wished.

That specific ability was of great importance for the ship's current mission, as there were several crises that demanded the attention of the Jedi Council.

"Grateful I am, that you are all here." Yoda nodded sagely, his blue hologram flickering slightly. "Allies of the Jedi Order, you all have been."

Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Mace Windu, and Bail Organa waited patiently around the table, eager to hear the news of galactic affairs as they had been cut off from all information as they attempted to rescue as many Jedi as they could.

Master Yoda, Senator Amidala, and Captain Rex joined them via holograms. Yoda from the recently rediscovered Jedi Temple on Dantooine, Senator Amidala (only from the shoulders up) joined them from Coruscant, and Rex refused to disclose his location even on such a secure channel, such was his paranoia and desire for secrecy.

"Please, Master, what is going on?" Anakin asked, his voice strained. The total comlink silence that the Council enforced seemed to be much harder on him than it was for the others.

"This puzzle has many pieces to it, Skywalker." Mace Windu said, holding up his hand to calm the frustrated Anakin. "Master Kenobi, what did you find on Kashyyyk?"

"Thank you, Master Windu." Obi-Wan said, giving Anakin a quick look to encourage his patience. "I am pleased to inform the Council that Master Luminara Unduli was rescued from clone captivity and is onboard our ship as we speak. It is too early to tell, but Force willing, she will make a full recovery."

Everyone in the room breathed an audible sigh of relief. Master Unduli was a bright light in a dark galaxy, and her wisdom would be invaluable in the days to come.

"How many recovered Jedi does that make?" Windu asked, his head bowed in thanks that yet another Master had been saved.

"A little over five hundred rescued, does Master Luminara make." Yoda replied, motioning behind him to the hidden Jedi enclave. "Providing them shelter on Dantooine, Master Shaak Ti and I are. Though more I sense, out in the galaxy. Hidden, scared, worried for their future."

"When I was at their base on Kashyyyk, I overheard them saying that several Jedi had been captured by slavers and were being put up for sale." Obi-Wan chimed in. "It is a dark time to be a Jedi. People believe us to be dead or dying."

"Come out of hiding, we cannot." Yoda said, his voice heavy with sadness. "Rescue Jedi in secret, we must. If we reveal our survival in the open, clones will surely come looking."

"Why are the clones doing this?" Anakin asked, pounding the table in frustration. "They were our allies, our friends! I can't believe they would do this."

"Perhaps the Chancellor was involved." Ahsoka chimed in. "Before Master Anakin killed him, he said something into his comlink. An 'Order 66'. Was that an order the clones were waiting for? A chance to gun us down?"

"I believe I can answer that, Commander." Rex chimed in. "A couple of months ago, ARC Trooper Fives came to me after an investigation he conducted after Clone Trooper Tup of the 501st became psychotically violent and killed General Tiplar. Fives tried to trace the conspiracy, claimed that we were all implanted with biochips that when activated could completely take over our minds. He swore that it went up to the very top. Guess we know that to be true now."

"Biochips implanted in their heads?" Obi-Wan asked. "We knew about this after the General Tiplar incident. It was a safeguard Syfo Dias requested to stop rogue Jedi. It's not designed to kill all of us."

"The Chancellor could have easily redesigned the implant to kill all Jedi upon a verbal command." Ahsoka replied. "He had complete control over so much of the Republic. He and Count Dooku could have done so much damage to the Republic without any of us knowing it. Any clone could have turned on us at any time."

"Not any clone." Rex said firmly. "After Fives told us, Commander Wolffe, Commando Gregor, and myself all removed those chips as soon as we could. General Skywalker sent me to Mandalore where I was taking part in the battle. When the command went out, Master Billaba went missing, and the clones started firing on her Padawan. Managed to save him, but I never saw the Jedi Master again."

Mace stared at the wood on the table with a deep grimace on his face. Depa Billaba was once his Padawan. He hadn't trained her well enough, it seemed. Yet another failure to add to his tale. The tally was growing large indeed.

"So some of the clones are not compromised by this Order 66." Mace said. "Good. Perhaps the Republic can figure out a way to remove the chips, or cancel the order. This can be reversed."

"I apologize, Master Windu, but the Republic is in no condition to issue such an order." Padme chimed in with an apologetic tone. "With the Chancellor dead, the Jedi Order in exile, and conflicting reports over what happened, the Senate is in chaos. Grand Vizier Mas Amedda is claiming that the Jedi successfully assassinated the Supreme Chancellor in order to take control of the Republic. He insists the clone army is the only thing standing between the Republic and total anarchy."

Anakin's eyes narrowed as he heard his wife recount the dark condition of the Republic. She was pregnant with his child. She shouldn't be in such a dangerous situation. Naboo would be much safer.

"Vizier Amedda is in on it with Sidious!" he thundered. "Traitors, all of them! Padme, the Senate is no longer safe. You need to get out of there. Go back to Naboo and wait until we have it back under control."

"Anakin, I'm grateful for your concern, but Coruscant is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now." Padme replied gently. "Admiral Tarkin has thrown his support behind Amedda's version of events, and is attempting to gain the emergency powers Palpatine once had. There is no other place I'm supposed to be. And all the while, things are growing worse. With the Grand Army of the Republic compromised, the Zygerrians are attempting to establish their slaving empire again. Planets are growing worried that the Republic can no longer protect them, and nobody knows what is happening with the Separatists after General Grievous was killed. Tarkin is using the crisis as an excuse to take more power. If we don't stop him now, nobody will. "

"I'm sorry, Master Skywalker, but I agree with Senator Amidala." Bail Organa said. "And I must return too. Palpatine drove many people out of our faction, and there are precious few remaining politicians who will speak out against this corruption. We must act, and act quickly if we are to save the Republic."

A smart tap from Yoda's cane brought everyone to attention.

"The tasks ahead, made clear to us, they are." Yoda said gravely. "In our hands, the fate of the Republic rests."

"Senator Organa, go back to Coruscant. Assist Senator Amidala. Stop these plotters, you will. Expose Darth Sidious, see his allies brought into the light."

"Kenobi, Skywalker. To Zygerria, you must go. Greatest heroes of the Clone Wars, the two of you are. Take down their empire. Show the galaxy that protect its people, the Republic still does."

"Padawan Tano, good relations with the clones, you have. Yes? Hmmm? Go to them. End Order 66. Rest on your shoulders, the future of the Jedi Order does."

"I'll send you the coordinates, Commander." Rex chirped, already walking away from the holo and punching information into his wrist gauntlet. "Rex, out."

"If it is alright, Master Yoda." Mace Windu said, rising from his seat. "I wish to deal with the Black Suns. I can think of no nobler mission than to find our captured Jedi."

"Agree with you, I do." Yoda nodded. "Dangerous, all of your missions are. Trust in the Force. Trust in each other. Though the shadows are long, survive, the spark of hope still does. Enkindle it, our new mission is now."

"May the Force be with you."

As they rose to leave, Anakin cleared his throat with a massive smile on his face. A rare sight in these troubled times.

"With permission, Masters, there is one more thing we must do."

"I agree." Obi-Wan concurred, giving an approving smile of his own.

"Indeed." came Mace Windu's reply.

"The will of the Force, this is." Yoda replied, an almost impish tone in his voice. This was a victory they all needed, albeit a small one.

"Master… what's going on?" Ahsoka asked, a suspicious tone in her voice.

"Padawan. Kneel." Anakin commanded, drawing his lightsaber.

Her stomach flipped. She knew what was coming. Only in her wildest dreams had this been a reality. She was going to have to have someone pinch her. Or maybe punch Anakin for making this a surprise he sprung on her.

"By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force." Anakin intoned, tapping each of her shoulders with his lightsaber. "Ahsoka Tano, you may rise."

And she did, her smile only matched by that of her master.

"It is my honor to be the very first person to introduce Jedi Knight Ahsoka Tano!" Anakin declared, clapping his hands together.

Ahsoka ignited her green blade, staring up and down its length as the rest of the room broke into enthusiastic applause. As they did so, she felt another tremor in the Force. But this time it was not a tremor of pain or sorrow.

It was a tremor of light bursting forth. They would be in darkness no longer.

"I'm still not thrilled about this." Anakin grumbled. "You're sure you've had no complications? What about any pains? I looked this up on the Holonet, you could go into labor at any moment!"

"Anakin, I'm fine." Padme protested with a smile. Even through his personal holorecorder, she could still sense when her husband was this anxious. "Don't you have your own mission to be focused on right now? Are you letting Obi-Wan do all the preparations?"

"We're traveling light, and Artoo is on top of making sure the _Twilight_ is in good condition." Anakin protested. "I haven't received a vision in weeks, but that somehow is making me even more nervous! Chancellor Palpatine said he had the power to save you from death, and after seeing him up close, I believe it. Did I just kill my one chance at saving your life?"

"No, of course not." Padme reassured him. "Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine was an evil man. You did the galaxy a great service by killing him. Remember, he was behind all of those assassination plots against me. We are both so much more free now. We're going to have a chance to be a family!"

"Not if the council finds out." he replied darkly. "Even after all I've done for them, even after being their Chosen One, there is still a good chance they kick me out for this. But I don't care. I only care about you and the baby."

"Anakin, I love you, but you're being dramatic." Padme countered with rolled eyes. "You do this all the time. You get so wrapped up in your feelings that you forget to focus on the present. Forget about the Jedi Council, forget about the Code, and forget about me. You have thousands of slaves that need rescuing. They are what you should be mindful of. They are the ones who need you the most right now. So go to them. Go to them, and be the hero I know you are."

"Padme!" he said as he saw her move to turn off her communicator.

"Yes?"

"I love you. So very much."

"I love you too Anakin." she said with that smile that once made him believe she was an angel. "May the Force be with you."

"Who was that?" came Obi-Wan's question as Anakin quickly shut off his holo.

"Just Padme, wishing me good luck before our mission, and I with her." Anakin replied, perhaps just a shade too hastily.

"Is that so?" came Obi-Wan's droll response. "Well come along them, Zygerria won't wait around for us to stop them. We have slavers to arrest."

The _Twilight_ made for the nearest hyperspace lane as Anakin and Obi-Wan made the final preparations for lightspeed as Artoo input the coordinates into the ship's computer. Anakin felt good to be back in the flow of things. He hadn't been able to truly speak to Obi-Wan since their departure soon before Order 66. It felt like old times, like a glove that fit him perfectly.

"Artoo, I have a new set of coordinates that I want you to plug in." Obi-Wan said, pressing the necessary buttons as R2-D2 beeped affirmatively. "I have a plan for how to infiltrate Zygerria."

"Anything you wish to share with me about this plan, Master?" Anakin asked, a bewildered smile upon his face.

Obi-Wan's returning grin reminded him startlingly of his own. He needed to stop doing that around his master. It appeared that he was picking up some of Anakin's bad habits.

"Come now, Anakin." Obi-Wan said. "Where is the fun in that?"

Oh yes, it was good to be back.


	4. Chapter 3: Hidden Cargo

Chapter 3: Hidden Cargo

Location: Kamino - Docking Bay 1138

CT-3521, known as Commander Click to his brothers, was anxious.

The Kamino Security Team had been on high alert ever since the assassination of the Supereme Chancellor and the commencement of Clone Protocol 66. The Kaminoans were certain that retaliation would come for some reason, and in the absence of General Shaak Ti had taken full command of the clone battalion charged with keeping the planet safe.

Click thought it was ridiculous. Kamino was safe, the Kaminoans had done nothing wrong the he knew of, and the Jedi were gone.

The Jedi…

Click knew that they were traitors. They had assassinated the Supreme Chancellor and tried to overthrow the Republic itself. Just thinking of the Jedi made Click feel overcome with rage. He knew that if he ever saw one again, he would empty his entire blaster into their cowardly body.

Still, something felt off. When he dreamed at night, he dreamed that insidious whispers poisoned his mind and that his thoughts were no longer his own. He felt like he was trapped, forever falling down into an abyss that was his mind. When he woke up most mornings, the actions he took no longer fully felt like his own.

He couldn't ponder it however, he still have an entire battalion to command. Today, that meant supervising the docking bays to make sure that Tipoca City was safe from any foes attempting to assassinate his makers.

Today, the current crisis seemed to be that a clone was having difficulty inspecting incoming cargo. An arriving shuttle was unloading its cargo when Click heard shouting between two different clones. As he walked over to see what the issue was, he could see that Topper was once again at the center of the conflict.

Topper was a good soldier, but wound a little too tight for being on the Kamino Security Team. Every single error was a possible killer, and nobody was above suspicion. It meant he caught a lot of problems, but nobody else in the battalion cared for him, and Click found his duties were much harder to perform when Topper was on on duty.

"Alright Top, what's the problem now?" Click asked with a sigh, taking out his datapad.

"This _shiny_ has cargo that wasn't on the manifest." Topper protested. "There is one extra crate from Kashyyyk on board this shuttle. It could be a trap! Spies working for the Jedi!"

"Look, all I know is that they told me to deliver these crates from Kashyyyk to Kamino, so that's what I'm doing." the other clone protested. "I don't know how many there were supposed to be, I just load and unload them. Can I be on my way now?"

"Oh I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Topper sneered back at him. "Dropping off your cargo means a bomb goes right to the Kaminoan living quarters. I know I've been wrong before commander, but trust me. I've got him this time."

"Stow it, trooper." Click said, already growing bored of the issue. Topper glared at him for a moment before remembering himself and snapping to attention. "We'll bring in hounds to settle this."

Akk dogs had been one of Click's ideas after seeing them in action when he had been temporarily assigned to Anoat. They could track a target for miles off of a stale scent alone, and had a keen knack for being able to sense things that shouldn't belong in cargo crates such as these.

As soon as the hounds came near the crates, they became completely unmanageable. Barking, scratching, and wandering away the moment Click urged them toward the crates. No matter what he did, the aak hounds would not search the crate. It was almost as if something was influencing them away.

"Blast it." he muttered, whipping out a handheld scanner. They weren't as reliable, but he'd have to make do.

Click shouldn't have worried. The scanner immediately picked up lifesigns coming from inside the container.

[Result: Lifesigns detected.]

[Amount: One]

[Species: Torgrutan]

Torgrutan… Click shook his head as if he was trying to shake off buzzing insects. Why was that so familiar to him? What was he trying to remem-

_He was on Kamino. His platoon was trying to regroup as the aqua droids had made short work of their makeshift fortifications. _

_Blast it, he could hear commando droids coming. Their blades were busy slicing his brothers up right now. There was nothing he could do. All that was left was the rifle through his bag for one last thermal detonator. He'd at least take a couple of those clankers out with him._

_One appeared right in front of him. Its sensors gave off no emotion. How could it? Click was about to die to something that wasn't even alive, something that wouldn't even know what it was doing was wrong. Where was the justice in that? No, the only justice was taking this thing out with him. _

_Before he could even flip the switch on the detonator, a lightsaber erupted out of its head as the droid crumpled to the ground. Jedi Master Shaak Ti stood holding it, looking both fearsome and elegant. _

"_What is your name, soldier?" she asked. _

"_CT-3521" he replied, coming to attention._

"_No, I asked for your name, trooper." she said kindly. _

"_It's Click, General." he said. "Ready to fight to the last clanker too!"_

"_I'm sure you are Click." Shaak Ti said with a consoling smile. "See to it that your men are well- rested first. You have done well to hold the line here. Make sure you truly ready to fight before joining us again. _

"_I… thank you, General." Click responded, giving a firm salute. _

"_It is I who should thank you." she said. "Without men such as yourself, we would have no hope of winning this war. Take care of yourself, Trooper Click. And stay true to yourself."_

Click snapped back to reality. It was like a veil had been lifted. Shaak Ti… she had saved him. She'd saved all of them. The Jedi were their friends. Why did he hate them so? What had they ever done to deserve to be labeled as enemies?

For the first time, but certainly not the last, Click was beginning to worry that his thoughts might not be his own.

He wasn't going to notify anyone about what was in the crate. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Something was wrong here, and if there was a Torgrutan Jedi in that crate, then maybe they could find what was wrong with Click and the rest of his brothers. He knew he wasn't the only one with strange dreams and extreme anger. They all felt it, whether they knew it or not.

"Ah, on your way trooper." he said, hastily clipping the scanner back on his belt. "Everything, ah, seems to be in order here."

"Sir!" Topper exclaimed before Click cowed him with a hard stare.

"It's not the shiny's fault that the crate wasn't on the manifest." Click said firmly. "Let the clone do his job."

"Let me get his identification first." Topper replied firmly. "If you're letting it pass, I'm getting all my information."

"Fine." Click said, grabbing the clone by the wrist and holding it up to his own, letting the data sync up and transfer.

"On your way, CT-7567."

"Oh I will be sir." Captain Rex replied, grinning from beneath his disguise. "Have yourself a good rest of your day."

Rex moved his crate to a storage area near the medical ward. Not only was it central enough that clones could move to and from the area without raising suspicion, but it was right next to the ventilation control room. A spot that would be extremely important to the person inside his crate.

"Good work with the hounds, commander." Rex said as Ahsoka Tano popped open the side of the container and delicately stepped out. "Looks like Shaak Ti's schematics didn't take into account all this extra security."

"Come on, look at the bright side Rex." Ahsoka grinned. "We still got inside, the structure of the place hasn't changed, and not all the clones are too far gone."

"I'm with Commander Tano." a clone said as he and his partner stepped inside. "The plan is still solid, and I'll take any risk if it means freeing my brothers."

"Wolffe, Gregor, just like the two of you to be late." Rex growled. "We're all enemies of the Republic. If you don't start focusing, if you don't start committing, we're all going down for this."

"My commitment? How dare you!" Wolffe shouted. "I lost my Jedi during Order 66, yours is still up and about. I'm not just doing this for our brothers, I'm not doing this for my name, I'm doing this to avenge those I've already lost. Don't you even think of telling me I'm not committed."

"Yeah, and I'm just here because it's the right thing to do." Gregor said. "We were used, Rex. I know what that's like. We've all felt that loss, we all know what's going on here, and how important our mission is."

He put a hand on Rex's shoulder. Gregor knew this must be hitting Rex hard. Fives had given several people in the 501st advanced warning about this. The captain was probably beating himself up for not saving more of his troops.

"We're here for you, Rex." he continued. "But you gotta trust us. We're still your brothers, Wolffe and I, and you gotta make sure you let us in."

Ahsoka cleared her throat and all eyes snapped back towards her. Reconciliation was nice, but she knew clones. What was really going to help them was accomplishing the mission.

"If we're all done here," she said. "Let's get on with it."

She tapped her gauntlet and soon a holo-model of Tipoca City's entire layout erupted from her emitter. Troop rotations, living quarters, work and movement schedules for all major Kaminoan figures. Shaak Ti had done well. Even injured and unable to accompany them, she was making herself useful.

"I'll be moving through the air vents. I'm the only one who fits, so I'll cut a nice little hole through the wall here, and vanish like a ghost." she began. "Get their attention, and get them isolated from the Security Team. Gregor and Wolffe, herd them towards the panic rooms away from the clone barracks and near the escape craft here."

As she pointed to the various locations, red indicators lit up on the map, painting a picture of Ahsoka's grand strategy. Rex wasn't sure where she gots these skills from, but if he even played a small part in this he could rest knowing he'd helped train a formidable Jedi.

"Once you've pushed them towards the panic rooms, that's where I come in." she continued. "Just get them into a room in one of these quadrants, and I'll take care of the rest. Rex, infiltrate and usher as much as possible."

"Does this mean I get to blow stuff up?" Gregor asked, giggling slightly in spite of the situation.

"How do you think we get them panicked in the first place?" Ahsoka replied, a massive grin on her face. "The crate I came in has inactive thermal detonators in the linings. I trust you can come up with something entertaining."

Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino was worried.

Order 66 had been activated, but there was no word from Master Tyrannus about what had actually happened. The command had been in place to eliminate any rogue Jedi that were a threat to the Republic, but something had gone wrong and the clones had executed every single Jedi in command of a clone army. Now the Republic was in shambles, and it was only a matter of time before somebody traced the crisis back to Kamino.

They were ruined, pure and simple. Lawsuits were the least of his concerns at the moment. What if some rogue party in the Republic wanted revenge for the Jedi? It was a nightmare. Kamino would never again have the reputation they once did. All that was left to do was start liquidizing their accounts and settling in for galactic decades of ignominy before a chance to make a profit was upon them again.

He was so lost in thought that he almost missed the clone in front of him.

"Lama Su?" it asked.

"Yes yes, what is your number, trooper?" he replied, waving a hand at him as he walked down the hallway.

"Actually sir, I haven't used my number in years. The name is Gregor now."

Lama Su felt the blaster before he saw it. There was a certain presence about all things that dealt death. An ill omen that made one feel uneasy as they stared down the barrel of something that had most certainly dealt death out before and would do so again.

And now, it seemed, the next kill the blaster would make would be his own.

"Prime Minister, get down!" another clone roared, reaching for the gun and diverting its trajectory at the very last second. The blaster bolt grazed his cheek, leaving a superficial wound, but that was a price Lama Su was very happy to pay at the moment.

The two clones struggled for a few brief moments before another rogue clone wearing unadorned armor that matched his companion came and joined the fray. With a titanic heave, the Security Clone shoved both would-be assassins off of him grabbed the bewildered Kaminoan and made a mad dash for the door.

"Those… those were clones!" Su gasped. His own creations were turning against him now. As odd as it was, the foremost thing on his mind was how many credits he would lose if word of this ever got out.

"To the panic rooms!" he shouted, snapping himself out of his reverie.

As they turned to leave, the two renegade clones lobbed a thermal detonator into the room. The flashed blinded the minister, and sent him hurtling back into the wall directly behind him. He was lucky. If the detonator had been any closer, he would have surely been killed.

"Other way sir!" the Security Clone shouted as he pushed Lama Su towards an advancing troop of other security personnel. "We need to get you to an escape craft, immediately!"

The next fifteen minutes went by like a blur for him. They would race down one corridor, only for the assassins to be there. It was like they knew every move he was about to take and beat him there. He had a bad feeling about this. They were missing something… something about what the assassins were up to.

Before he knew it, they had been cut off from the escape craft. Only one place was left open to them. It was a security room installed shortly after the Battle of Kamino in order to protect recently arrived dignitaries or important Kaminoans. Lama Su hoped he could wait out the attack in here and wait for help to arrive.

Inside, he saw that he wasn't the first one to have that idea. Another Kaminoan was huddled up in the corner. Hopefully she didn't know anything about the ambush. It would just complicate matters if she did.

"Ah, Nala Se, so good to see you again." he said with a bow, trying desperately to not let her on to how serious the situation was.

"Prime Minister!" she exclaimed. "What is going on? Are we under attack?"

"A small skirmish, but nothing the clones cannot handle." he assured her. "We are completely safe in here."

Then the room exploded.

But it wasn't a bomb from outside the door. The wall on the opposite side had been blasted inward, but without any corresponding flash. As the dust flew throughout the room, he saw two columns of fire, one green and one yellow, erupt from within the darkness. It danced around the room with terrifying speed, slicing the barrels on all the blasters that the clones carried into the room with them.

The dust began to settle, and Lama Su saw the figure the two lightsabers belonged to. The Torgrutan danced around, kicks and punches smashing into the helms of any clone unfortunate enough to be in her way. Soon, almost all of his security detail was down. He knew then he'd been led into a trap. This was where he was supposed to end up all along. Inside a room with an angry Jedi, with rabid clones waiting outside if he managed to escape.

"Trooper!" Su screamed, grabbing onto the clone that had saved him in the original hallway. "Attack her! Defend me!"

"See, here's the thing Prime Minister," Captain Rex said, taking off his helm, blaster pistol leveled at the Kaminoan. "I think you really need to hear Commander Tano out."

"I see the Chief Medical Scientist is here too." Ahsoka said, lightsaber pointed at Nala Se's neck. "I think she can answer some of our questions as well."

The trip to the communication center was enlightening for Ahsoka and the clones. The Kaminoans swore up and down that they had no clue what Order 66 was truly for. It had been something a Jedi had approached them, they said. The idea had originally come from Syfo Dias and another Jedi named Tyrannus. That last part was what made Ahsoka so skeptical. There was no Master Tyrannus in the Jedi order. It wasn't even close to the name of any other Jedi. When Lama Su had offered to take the strike force to the communications center and contact Tyrannus directly, it was an offer she couldn't refuse. Either it gave her the excuse she needed to bring the Kaminoans to Coruscant to stand trial, or it would prove their innocence and lead Ahsoka to the real culprits.

"I can assure you, Master Jedi, that you will find everything you need on that communicator." Lamu Su said. Ever since their chat in the hangar bay panic room, he had been the epitome of grace and manners. And she knew that the moment a blaster wasn't pointed at his back, she'd find one pointed at hers.

"I agree with the Prime Minister!" Nala Se exclaimed. "Tyrannus will show you that none of this is our fault. Indeed, our only possible failure here is making a template that was too good at what it did. An overzealous application of Clone Protocol 66 cannot possibly be something we can be punished for, can it?"

"Alright, that's enough out of you." Wolffe said, giving the Chief Scientist a smack on the head for good measure. "You gave one of those chips to every single one of my brothers. We killed our generals and friend because of you!"

"Quiet!" Ahsoka shouted all of a sudden. "The transmission is getting picked up!"

Everyone in the room went dead silent as an image flickered to life. But the figure on the other end of the holo was not a human. It was a droid, a forensics model used throughout the Core, Inner Rim, and even some of the wealthier Mid Rim planets to assist in solving crimes.

"Um, hello!" the droid chirped. "And who might you be?"

"We're Jedi and clones!" Rex shouted out, bewildered at the bizarre turn the case was taking. "Who are you?"

"Ah, well I am FD-2149," the droid replied with a cheery tone. "I am a forensics droid in service to the Clone Intelligence Unit stationed on Coruscant. You have messaged the wreck that I have been working on for the past few weeks. This is all irrelevant. You are a wanted fugitive in the company of AWOL soldiers. I am legally bound to inform you that at the termination of this communication I will be notifying the authorities of this conversation."

"EffDee, you said that you were working on a wreck. What sort of wreck is it?" Ahsoka asked.

"Oh I am sorry, that is classified information." FD replied with a sad tone. "You do not have the clearance to view that information."

"Authorization code Bantha-Niner-X-3-Y" Rex chimed in, leaning into explain when he saw Ahsoka's puzzled look. "Relax, Commander. It's something I picked up from one of our new friends."

"Oh! Senator Organa, my apologies!" FD said with an affirmative beep. "I did not recognize you. The shaved look is a nice touch."

"Tell us what wreck you're working on EffDee!" Rex said, his patience growing thin.

"Well, the wreck of the _Invisible Hand_!" the droid replied. "I'll be sorting through this for weeks and weeks after this too if you require more information."

The _Invisible Hand_. The name was bringing up half forgotten memories for Ahsoka. Something that she was forgetting.

"EffDee, who owned the _Invisible Hand_?" Ahsoka asked.

"Oh, another question already!" the droid said. "Well that is one that I just discovered this morning when I sorted through the wreckage of the observation deck. It was a fascinating piece of work. Whoever resided there had a real flair for the luxurious. The finest woods, metal, silk. You name it, he had it. I could spend days categorizing the objects I found. In fact, I could spend days just talking about them! Did you know that-"

"EffDee!"

"My apologies, Senator." the droid said, its repulsors dropping in the air a few inches as it was startled. "The private quarters in the _Invisible Hand_ belonged to one Count Dooku. You are speaking on his private holocommunicator that has one direct channel to the communications center to Tipoca City."

The room was dead silent.

Rex moved forward to end the transmission, as Ahsoka was too dumbstruck to do anything about it. In fact, the whole entire strike force had similar reactions. Lama Su could have snatched their guns and shot them all in the back, except both Kaminoans were in a greater state of shock than they were.

Tyrannus was Dooku. Dooku was Tyrannus. The Sith had infiltrated the very heart of the Republic's war effort, shaping it from the very beginning. This was far worse than anyone thought, and far harder to fix.

"So…" Gregor said, recovering the quickest out of all of them, looking around at his brothers and his friend.

"What do we do now?"


	5. Chapter 4: A Crisis in the Senate

**Chapter 4: A Crisis in the Senate**

Location: Coruscant - The Senate Building

Bail Organa tried to discreetly make his way into the Senate Chambers, not wishing to disrupt the hearings in process.

He needn't have worried.

The Senate was completely enraptured by a massive projection of the late Chancellor Palpatine, Darth Sidious to those who knew better, while an audio recording played out for the assembled audience.

[Resist? How could I possibly exist? This is _murder_, you Jedi traitors! How can _I_ be of any threat to you? Master Tiin-you're the telepath. What am I thinking right now?]

[Sasee-]

[Help! Help! Security-_someone_! Help me! Murder! Treason!]

[static]

"As you can clearly see, the Jedi plotted to remove the Supreme Chancellor from power by force, and resorted to violence at the first opportunity." Admiral Tarkin droned. Bail cursed under his breath when he realized that Tarkin was in charge of the military investigation. Wilhuff Tarkin had quickly made a name for himself as a tenacious, cunning, and ruthless officer. With his mind focused on blaming the Jedi for the Chancellor's assassination, it was going to be that much harder to prove their innocence.

"There is no way to prove how far this conspiracy goes, and given how aggressively they moved, with so little prior warning, I must insist that the Senate treat the entire Jedi Order as co-conspirators." Tarkin continued. "In addition, I move that an immediate arrest warrant be placed on Mace Windu and Ahsoka Tano, along with a kill on sight order for Anakin Skywalker. The video logs, along with this audio file, are evidence enough to convict all three beyond a shadow of a doubt."

As the Senate erupted in both support and protest, Padme began punching buttons on her podium. The terminal gave an affirmative chime, and said that she would be allowed to continue with her request to speak.

"Padme, perhaps I should speak instead. With your health, I worry that-" Bail withered under her gaze and meekly sat back down in their repulsorpod. She had always been a good friend to the Jedi, and it was clear to him that she was taking the accusations against them harder than most.

"Fellow Senators, esteemed Grand Vizer," Padme began, her voice calm and clear as the repulsorpod drifted towards the center of the chamber. "Though the admiral makes a commendable case, he does not have the whole story. The tapes and audio logs also confirm that Chancellor Palpatine was a Sith Lord!"

"Respectfully, Senator Amidala, but Chancellor Palpatine's religious affiliation is not an important matter in this discussion." Vice Chair Mas Amedda interjected. "Our constitution protects an individual from discrimination, no matter their beliefs. We cannot condemn a great man with a noble legacy on such baseless and irrelevant charges."

"But the Sith are behind all of the recent events that plague our Republic!" Padme exclaimed. Though he doubted anyone else could, Bail was close enough to see Senator Amidala had her jaw clenched tightly shut in frustration. "Chancellor Palpatine was Darth Sidious, the man behind the blockade of my home planet, several assassination attempts against me, the start of the Clone War, and the execution of the majority of the Jedi Order!"

"Forgive my impertinence, Senator, but do you have any proof of these accusations?" Tarkin replied, an ever so subtle smirk upon his face. "To make the claim that Chancellor Palpatine, in addition to being a Sith Lord, orchestrated the Clone War from not only the Republic side, but also coordinated with the Separatists and all the while plotting to kill the Jedi? And while we are on the subject of that venerable religion, how do you justify the reality that if Chancellor Palpatine was really the Sith mastermind of this whole affair, why was the Jedi Order taken completely unaware?"

"If I may, Admiral, the Dark Side of the Force has the ability to cloud many things." Senator Mon Mothma interjected, moving her own platform into the center of the arena to join her companions. "The Jedi Order was taken unaware, but may I remind the Admiral that so was the Galactic Republic."

"The chair does not recognize the Sentator from Chandrilla." Mas Amedda said curtly, clearly perturbed by the latest outburst. "You will remain silent on such affair until you are called upon."

"No, no, Vice Chair, I will allow it." Tarkin said, raising up a hand to halt any further objections. The ease with which he had deflected all of their protests and taken control of the Senate Chamber startled Bail. He was clearly someone to be wary of.

"Tell me, Senator Mothma, when did you become such an acolyte of the Jedi religion?" Tarkin asked her. "I am unaware of any 'Dark Side', and how it corrupted the Order. How is it that you are so intimately familiar with the workings of the mystical 'Force'? Need I remind you that any and all contact with the treasonous Jedi be reported immediately to Commander Fox and his security forces?"

"They are not traitors yet, Admiral Tarkin." Mon Mothma replied defiantly. "Nor shall they be considered so while they still possess friends in the Republic."

"Clearly." Tarkin sneered. "Which brings me to my point, Vice Chair. I vote we move forward with my proposals on the declaration of treasonous intent for the Jedi Order, the arrest warrants for Windu and Tano, along with a kill order on Skywalker."

"But there is so much we still do not know!" Padme objected. "Should there not be time for an informal inquiry?"

"An inquiry over what?" Tarkin countered. "Baseless accusations and irrelevant criticisms? I think not, Senator."

"If I may, Vice Chair, I think I have found a solution to our disagreement, albeit temporarily." Bail interjected.

"The Chair recognizes Senator Organa of Alderaan." Mas Amedda breathed, clearly relieved to have at least one member of the Jedi loyalists be open to reason.

"This esteemed Senate seems to be lacking in good, seasoned leadership at the moment." Bail began. "With the passing of Chancellor Palpatine, the role of Supreme Chancellor is vacant, which cannot stand in a time such as this."

Murmurs of assent, from all sides of the Senate Building greeting Bails proclamation. No matter what differences the various factions of the Galactic Senate possessed, all could see that leadership was needed.

"I therefore move that Vice Chair Mas Amedda be named Acting Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, until such a time that an election can take place to name a true successor. All I ask in return, is that the Delegation of 2000 be given time to either lawfully convict or exonerate the Jedi Order in regards to the assassination of Chancellor Palpatine."

"Seconded!" came a shout from above, as many raised their arms, tentacles, or other appendages in the air to show their approval. Palpatine had been an extraordinarily popular figure during his tenure, and a great deal of that goodwill extended towards his Vice Chair after his death.

The votes soon came in. The proposal had passed with flying colors. Padme and Bail both breathed sighs of relief and he could see that Mon Mothma was doing the same. They had been given a reprieve. Not a large one, but Bail was certain it would be enough.

"Vice Chair, I must object to this most unusual proceeding." Tarkin said coolly, looking at Mas Amedda with a cold, hard stare on his face. "We must act quickly to ensure that the Jedi are brought to justice for their crimes."

"The wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly, but that is the price we must pay for living in a free society such as this." Amedda replied, absentmindedly stroking one of his secondary tentacles as a slight smile danced across his face. It took all of Bail's control not to burst out laughing. Mas Amedda, like most Republic politicians, was an arrogant creature. He knew that the longer this investigation went on, the longer he could remain in power and build up a coalition that would make his temporary Chancellorship into a permanent one.

"I am calling an end to this assembly for the day." the Acting Chancellor declared. "We shall convene together in a standard week's time. That should be enough time for the truth to see the light."

Location: Coruscant - 500 Republica, Padme Amidala's apartment

The 500 Republica apartments were without a doubt one of the most advanced and luxurious living spaces in the galaxy. This single building alone contained more technology than most of the planets in the Outer Rim. Piercing through the sky and claiming the title of one of the tallest buildings on Coruscant, it was one of the most distinctive and impressive buildings on the entire planet.

As befitting a building of its status, 500 Republica was the home of some of the most important people in the galaxy. Senators Amidala, Organa, and even the Supreme Chancellor himself called this building home.

It was in Senator Amidala's apartment in fact, that an emergency meeting was taking place.

They all knew each other. A few even counted each other among their closest friends. The Supreme Chancellor had assembled them into a group several years ago to, as he put it, "root out the corruption in the Senate". They had gone by many names during that time. Loyalist Committee, Delegation of 2000, but Bail Organa had a sneaking suspicion that there was another name that was far more appropriate.

Traitors.

It all made sense, in a sick, twisted way. If Palpatine had been a Sith lord driven to destroy the Republic, what better way to ensure your political enemies were tracked and eliminated than have them assemble together in a committee dedicated to opposing government corruption and tyranny?

Had Anakin Skywalker not put his lightsaber through Palpatine's chest, Bail was under no illusion that most of the people in this room would have either been arrested or killed had the Clone War ended the way the Chancellor had designed.

The Delegation of 2000 had all been thinking similar thoughts. Even though the threat of Palpatine had been removed, they still had targets on their backs. Schemers like Mas Amedda or ruthless military officials like Tarkin would still look at them with a keen interest. If there was going to be a scapegoat for the new government to use, it would be one of the Loyalist Committee.

"Thank you all for coming." Padme said, her voice calm but firm. "Let us begin."

Well over two dozen senators occupied the Naboo Senator's apartment. Some like Mon Mothma were there because they saw the dark fate that awaited the Republic if things didn't change, while some like Orn Free Taa came because they were worried that recent events had exposed them politically and the Delegation of 2000 was the only refuge that would welcome them.

"You are all here because the Jedi Order has helped you in some way or another, and now it is time for us to repay that debt." she continued. "The accusations Tarkin is bringing before the Senate have a suspicious air to them. All of this evidence is to quick and too convenient to be the work of diligent investigation. Something isn't right here."

"I concur." Bail agreed. "Mas Amedda was more than willing to shoot down any accusation we made until I proposed we make him the Acting Chancellor."

"Tarkin is an apex predator who has caught the scent of his prey." Garm Bel Iblis chimed in gloomily. "There might not be much we can do besides resist in secret. My wife is encouraging me to travel back to Corellia until the Republic sorts this out. Though I am reluctant to leave, I am inclined to agree with her. How can we prove the Jedi are innocent when Tarkin has so much evidence that the Jedi killed the Chancellor."

"Nobody is debating that Anakin- Master Skywalker, killed the Supreme Chancellor!" Padme exclaimed. "But it was justified. I know we will find proof!"

"And until you do so, I will be back on Ryloth." Orn Free Taa belched, slurping down the last of the hoi broth a disgusted C-3PO offered him. "Cham Syndulla is trying to take my Senate seat, and I won't give it up without a fight."

"Is that all you can think about?" Padme asked him, giving the corpulent Twi'lek an accusatory stare. "Food and your own precious seat? There are bigger issues at play here!"

For all her protests, most of the committee sided with Senator Taa. The risk in exonerating the Jedi was far too great, and any possible reward was completely dependent on the Jedi having the power to help them after the crisis was over.

"We are still with you Padme." Mon Mothma said as the rest of the Senators departed, each offering a condolence more feeble than the one before. "The Jedi have not lost all of their allies in the Senate."

"I agree." Bail said. "Though not as strong as before, we can still mount our own private investigation. Mon Mothma, return to Chandrila and continue to feed Master Yoda information on surviving Jedi. If Padme and myself are brought down along with the Jedi, at least you will have a chance to steer clear, or at least run if fate is cruel."

After she left, Bail went out to the balcony to comfort his friend. Padme was taking this extremely hard. Privately, he worried that there was more to this than simple camaraderie. If she was somehow compromised, their collective reputation might be ruined.

"We can still do this." Bail said firmly. "We can prove that Chancellor Palpatine orchestrated Order 66 with Count Dooku. That in and of itself is conspiracy with enemies of the Republic."

"It proves nothing." Padme said, moving a hand absentmindedly across her midriff. Bail noted that it was an effort done slightly in vain. The dresses she had been wearing lately had been so large and elaborate that one could hardly even see the outline of her figure. "Ahsoka contacted me and informed me about the communications to the _Invisible Hand_, but the ship's holocommunicator soon disappeared from the forensics lab. Someone is working against us from the shadows, preventing us from discovering the truth."

She slammed her hand down on the balcony, frustration clearly etched on her face.

"The dead Jedi in his office mean nothing, supposedly his Sith beliefs are protected, and we just lost our only lead on his dealings with Dooku. This is a nightmare. This is just-"

Padme stopped mid-rant, her eyes widening as a realization dawned on her.

"Padme, what is it?" Bail asked.

"It's not the only proof we have of them communicating." Padme said, rushing back into her apartment and tapping furiously on a holopad. "Anakin mentioned something to me after the Battle of Coruscant. He and Obi-Wan found something on Cato Nemoidia. A spider-like holodroid that showed Nute Gunray meeting with someone called "Lord Sidious". Bail, we know that Sidious was Palpatine!"

"And if we found that droid…" Bail said, his sentence trailing off as he became lost in his own thoughts. "We trace Palpatine to Nute Gunray, the assassination attempts against you, and the very start of the Clone Wars!"

"Go and see if you can find where the investigation left off!" Padme urged. "I… I don't think I would be very useful if you got into a scrap, nor can I move all that quickly. I can give you my head of security though, he should be able to help you out."

"Yes, stay here and keep digging up information." Bail said, already putting on his coat as he made for the exit. "We can still do this Padme. I'll go to the last known location of the droid, and see what I can pull up."

"May the Force be with you, Bail." Padme called as he left.

"And may the Force be with you, Senator Amidala." Bail replied. "For the Jedi. And for the Republic!"


	6. Chapter 5: An Old Face and New Friends

**Chapter 5: An Old Face and New Friends**

Location: Hyperspace - Perlemian Trade Route

Obi-Wan had been extremely quiet during their trip to whatever mysterious planet he had them flying towards. It wasn't even a meditative quiet. No, this sort of silence hung heavy in the air and caused Anakin to feel extremely uneasy. There was a simple solution, however. All he needed to do was be patient and wait for his master to speak with him about what was troubling him.

Unfortunately for Anakin, patience had never been a strong point.

"Something on your mind, master?" Anakin asked, his tone betraying how frayed his temper had become over the past few days.

"Anakin, we are about to embark upon a dangerous mission." Obi-Wan said. "I'm sure that whatever is on my mind can wait until after it is done."

A typical Kenobi style answer. He hadn't really answered anything, while trying to peacefully diffuse the situation. Anakin was having none of it. It was too hard to keep all of the secrets inside. He was tired of hiding. Ever since telling Ahsoka, there had been a weight lifted off his chests, and now he felt like clearing the air with Obi-Wan.

"Don't give me that, Master." he badgered. "You know as well as I do that there is something that concerns you. You owe me at least that much. Tell me what's going on!"

A part of him already knew. During his training at the Jedi Temple, Master Tera Sinube had been in charge of Anakin's training regarding criminal activities. The old Jedi remarked that he found the guilty sometimes sought out their own doom. They would raise suspicion when there was originally none, they would sabotage their own endeavors, and occasionally they would go so far as to turn themselves in.

Anakin wasn't sure he was that far gone, but he felt that his actions matched the first two stages pretty closely. He was just too tired to keep on hiding like this. Obi-Wan was like a brother to him, he'd once joked to Padme that Obi-Wan probably knew him more closely than she did. Keeping such a tremendous secret from him weighed heavily on Anakin's soul and he just couldn't take it anymore.

Obi-Wan seemed to know what he was thinking. After Anakin's little challenge, he was more than happy to try and see if his suspicions could be proven too.

"You're the father, aren't you?" he asked softly.

And there it was. A simple question, without a single hint of anger or frustration. It almost sounded like he was at Anakin's beside, gently holding his hand as he nursed his former Padawan back to health.

It hurt Anakin, cutting him to his very soul. How could Obi-Wan be so calm? How could he be so collected? Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, the war hero, his best friend, had forsaken his Jedi vows and betrayed their order. And yet instead of raging at him, instead of scolding him for his behavior, Obi-Wan was trying to be his friend. For some reason, that made Anakin feel even angrier.

"And if I am?" Anakin asked back, his arrogance desperately trying to mask the pain he was feeling.

"Anakin…"

"What, Master? What is it you want me to say?" Anakin asked, turning to face his old master for the first time. "Yes, I married Padme. Yes, we've been living together for some time and I see her every chance I get. I love her, she is my everything, and I've been living in fear for weeks now. Every time I peer deeply into the Force, I see her dying in childbirth. My baby is killing her, Obi-Wan, and I'm worried that I'm not powerful to save her. Just like how I couldn't stop my mother from dying, I can't stop Padme's death from coming. The Chancellor tried to tempt me with it too. He knew about Padme somehow, and said that if I joined him he would give me the power I sought."

The silence between them was heavy, almost suffocating. When it was clear that Obi-Wan wasn't going to break the silence, Anakin took it as his cue to continue baring his soul. He was grateful, his anger at his master already dissipating. Obi-Wan had always been good at calming a situation, and he was able to sense that Anakin just needed to get this all off his chest. Anakin hoped that one day he would be capable of doing the same.

"I came so close to giving in." he continued, staring off into the hyperspace around their ship. "If it wasn't for Ahsoka… I don't even want to think about it, Obi-Wan. Except I do. All the time. All I can think about is this darkness that still whispers inside of me, telling me that I made the wrong choice and that the only way to save my wife is to surrender to the dark power that beckons."

"She won't die, you know." came Obi-Wan's calm response. "Master Yoda tells us that the future is impossible to truly predict. We only see the path of what might be, not what will."

"But it is all I see!" Anakin exclaimed back.

He clenched his right fist, his leather glove protesting against how much pressure he was exerting on it.

"What I see her death, I feel so powerless." he continued. "It shouldn't be that way. I'm the most powerful Jedi of my generation, the greatest warrior of the Clone Wars. Why shouldn't I be able to save her?"

He expected Obi-Wan to give another one of his famous "be mindful of your feelings" speeches, or perhaps admonish for yet another of Anakin's displays that were clearly "not the Jedi way!", but it didn't come. All that came was a simple gesture of love from a good man.

"Anakin." Obi-Wan said, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Your mother's death wasn't your fault, and you cannot blame yourself. As for Padme, the future is not set in stone. Trust in the Force, as you have done already. You may think yourself tempted Anakin, and your battle with the Dark Side might not be complete, but you have proven yourself a Jedi, dozens of times. You are a good man and a good friend."

"Master, why aren't you mad about anything that I've told you?" Anakin asked, trying to ignore the compliments. Though he craved them, they also made him deeply uncomfortable with how honest they were. "Aren't you furious with any of the things that I've said?"

"To be honest, I was livid."

"Then why aren't you mad at me?"

"Because you are my brother, Anakin." Obi-Wan said kindly. "And I love you."

Before Anakin could say anything, the computer started beeping. They had arrived at their destination.

As they ship exited out of hyperspace, Anakin was greeted by a brown planet dotted with sparse and sturdy flora. Readings told him that there were signs of life on the planet. Especially in a small little enclave that seemed somewhat familiar to him…

"Wait, Master, are we at Florrum?" he asked.

"Possibly." grinned Obi-Wan.

"Our plan to stop the Zygerrians involves working with pirates?" Anakin scoffed.

"Well we seem to be a little short on allies at the moment." Obi-Wan retorted drolly. "And these pirates are our best shot at getting close to the Zygerrian Queen."

"Fine." Anakin replied. "But if they kidnap us, this will be completely your fault, and you never get to plan things alone again."

Location: Florrum - Hondo's Camp

"Well, well, well!" Hondo Onaka said, lounging on his makeshift throne consisting of a plush captain's chair embedded with various precious gems and metals. "If it is not the great general Obi-Wan Kenobi! My dear friend, if you have come to give poor old Hondo the honor of turning you in for the bounty, I humbly accept."

"We are not here to let you capture us, Hondo." Obi-Wan said tactfully. "We have come because we seek your help."

"My- my help?" Hondo asked, a look of shock etched on his face before breaking out into hearty laughter. His crew joined in on it, and even his monkey-lizard let out a malicious cackle. "Oh Kenobi, I think I will miss our inside jokes the most when I turn you and your companion here over to the Republic."

Anakin's lightsaber was drawn and ignited before anyone had time to react. He leveled it with frightening speed at Hondo's throat, not caring for the dozen blasters trained upon Obi-Wan and himself.

"Go ahead and try, Hondo." Anakin snarled. "You won't be alive to collect the reward."

"Oh my, careful with that laser sword, young Skywalker." Hondo tittred. "You're fast, but not fast enough to beat half a dozen blaster bolts. I don't want dead Jedi all over my floor, I recently 'obtained' a kingly selection of Fendtian marble for my floors. Don't dirty it so soon after my completely legal purchase."

"I think we could all benefit from calming down a bit." Obi-Wan said cautiously, lowering Anakin's arm and motioning for him to deactivate his lightsaber. Anakin did so, but only reluctantly.

"Hondo, the Zygerrian slavers are taking advantage of the Republic's turmoil and recreating their empire of old." Obi-Wan continued. "Anakin and myself are on a mission to stop them, but we need allies. Hondo, your pirates can get us close enough to stop them."

"And how do you propose I help you?" Hondo asked, clearly curious.

"Pretend to take us captive." Obi-Wan said, a slight grin on his face as he saw Hondo's eyes go wide as he realized what he was talking about. "Sell us to the Zygerrians, and demand to meet with the highest level officials you can possibly get. It will allow Anakin and myself to infiltrate their massive processing center where most of their central leadership will be. After you get your credits, you can fly out of there, Anakin and I will handle the rest."

"Kenobi!" Hondo gasped, clutching his chest in mock surprise. "Cavorting with pirates, underhanded tactics, secretly infiltrating a slave processing center to sabotage it from the inside? I'm so proud. Clearly my good habits have been rubbing off on you."

"Still," he continued. "Though your plan is good, inspired, and almost good enough to have been written by me, but I see no reason why my men and myself should risk being enslaved by those horrible beings for some Jedi and a Republic that will almost certainly arrest me if I survive this hairbrained mission."

"So we'll pardon you!" Anakin blurted out. Time was of the essence, and Anakin had lost all patience for negotiating with people like Hondo Onaka.

"Anakin…"

"We'll pardon you of your crimes." Anakin continued, ignoring his master. "If you help us, the Jedi and the Republic will ensure your record is wiped clean. Think it over, Hondo. One last job, and you can go straight."

"Ugh! I have never heard something so distasteful in all my years!" Hondo exclaimed, stroking his frill as he pondered the offer. "Still, amnesty for past, present, and future crimes would be a nice boon to have."

"No future crimes, don't push it, Hondo." Anakin countered back, his stare hardening.

"Easy, young Skywalker, I was merely exploring my options." Hondo said, raising his hands up in defense as he looked towards Obi-Wan, who only gave him a shrug in return.

"Ah well, it is hard to say no to friends, especially ones as good as you two." Hondo continued. "Besides, I won't just be getting amnesty, I'll be expecting a lot of Zygerrian gold as well. Let me take my spoils, and I'll gladly fly you there, fake fetters and all!"

"That's slaver gold!" Anakin exclaimed. "Blood money, made off the backs of innocents."

"Correction, it is my money now." Hondo replied. "The Zygerrians are merely holding onto it for me, and it is so nice that you consider me innocent. I consider you to be a good looking man yourself."

"Anakin." Obi-Wan cautioned, placing a calming hand upon his shoulder once again. "Let it go."

Anakin scowled but saw reason in keeping his mouth shut.

"Thank you, Hondo." Obi-Wan continued. "I think I speak for both of us when we say that we would be honored to abide by the terms of this deal. You get the Zygerrian coin from our sale, amnesty for all your past crimes, and any gold you can make off with."

Hondo pondered it over for a few seconds, his normally raucous crew was silent as they eagerly awaited their boss' decision.

"Well, my mother always told me to never look a gift speeder in the exhaust port, and so I won't!" Hondo laughed. "I say it's a bargain, and well struck at that. To victory or death, my Jedi friends. Although between the three of us, I only plan on doing the former."

"Now let's get you set up in restraints, we need to make sure those Zygerrians buy whatever story we sell. It shall be the greatest heist in the history of the galaxy, and the name Hondo Onaka will be written large across it!"


	7. Chapter 6: A Suicide Mission

**Chapter 6: A Suicide Mission**

Location: Hyperspace - The Hydian Way

After their skirmish on Kamino, the Kaminoan scientists had been more than willing to help Ahsoka and her crew in continuing on their quest.

A part of it had been their desire to see the fugitive Jedi and rogue clones off their planet, but another reason was that their reputation was at stake. If word were to get out that clones made on Kamino could be made to slaughter their employers, the entire cloning industry could be ruined for the entire planet.

So instead of arresting Ahsoka and sending her off to the Republic, they gave her and her crew an upgrade in their arms and armament, an attachment of clones for additional fire support, and even a new ship to take them where they needed to go.

The _Relic V _ wasn't an extraordinarily fast ship, nor did it have potent weaponry. In almost every way, the _Relic V_ was an ordinary ship that stood out in no way, shape, or form. It was perfect for what they needed.

Their mission was most likely suicidal. The odds any of them survived this were slim, but the thought of not completing their task filled the entire crew with dread.

It was why Ahsoka was isolating herself in the cargo bay. Not only to avoid the clones who were still under the effects of Order 66, but also to meditate and calm her mind. Though she was grateful for Anakin Skywalker's teaching and his inspiration, she also knew that he was prone to swells of emotion, and she needed to immerse herself in the Force in order to focus on the mission at hand.

Though Darth Sidious was dead, and Master Yoda had assured the surviving Jedi that the Force would be purer, easier to delve into and commune with. But when Ahsoka let her mind expand, all she could sense were dark storm clouds.

The Force was twisting and turning with dark currents, sounds of conflict and the screams of the dying innocent rang in her ears. Before she could cut herself off from the Force, visions of the past, present and future overwhelmed her.

"At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have our revenge."

"You are my brother Anakin, and I love you."

"Master Tano, we have to go back. They'll die if we don't!"

"Ahsoka?"

"General Tano!"

manderAhsoka felt herself fall to the floor as she snapped out of her meditation. It seems she had been levitating without even knowing it. Yet another thing she needed to ask Master Skywalker about.

"What is it, Rex?" she asked. "Are we here?"

"We are, General." Rex said with a smile. Ever since she became a Jedi Knight, she had received the promotion from commander to general. It was fairly ceremonial at this point, but she appreciated how Rex was hellbent on following orders. It gave her a rock to cling to.

"We are, General." Rex confirmed. "Commander Click assures me that you can go to the cockpit. As long as your lightsaber is away, the clones won't bother you."

She nodded gravely and followed Rex through the cargo hold and past the Kaminoan Shock Troops. She noticed that these clones were far more haggard looking than either Rex or the other free clones. They looked like they were being stretched too thin to properly function, as if something was fighting them for control of every single one of their actions.

Then she realized that they were. Order 66 was trying to control their every action. A person, even a clone, who was torn in two couldn't keep going on like this. It made Ahsoka realize that she wasn't just fighting for the Jedi or the Republic. There were many different victims of the Sith's machinations, and they were all deserving of mercy and justice.

Location: Serenno - CIS Serenno Defense Fleet

The _Relic V_ dropped out of hyperspace just outside of the Separatist blockade of Serenno. The battlefleet that Count Dooku had charged with defending his home was among the best in the entire galaxy. Sixteen troop transports, five D-H Omni Support Vessels, two commerce guild destroyers, and even a formidable _Providence_-class dreadnought made for an almost impenetrable defense.

Emphasis on the almost.

"Gregor, are you sure this is gonna work?" Wolfee said, warily handling the controls on the ship.

"Ah relax, Wolffe!" Gregor said. "I got me a little plan to make sure they don't fire on us."

"Well you mind sharing what your genius plan actually is?" Wolffe shot back, clearly on edge about the whole business.

"Well you see, commandos have all sorts of little goodies we don't let the other clones in on." Gregor grinned. "And some of those goodies, just happen to be Separatist access codes. These little numbers here should let us get right on the ship."

"Wait, you're trusting this operation on old access codes?" Wolffe asked, his voice rising in alarm. "How do you know if these are even valid? How long have you had these?"

"My brothers told me we got them during the First Battle of Geonosis." Gregor boasted. "Ripped them right out of the Geonosian computers!"

"You mean these are three years old?" Wolffe exclaimed, eyes wide as he realized their ship could be turned into radioactive ash before his next thought even entered his brain. "Gregor you fool, we'll all be killed!"

"Aw quit your whining!" Gregor grinned. "We ain't dead yet, and I know my brothers, they gave us good codes! I bet you that we get into that hangar and we're on their command bridge before they even know what hit 'em!"

It seemed like Gregor's bragging had more than a grain of truth to it. As the _Relic V_ steadily coasted towards the flagship, the Separatist guns were quiet. Every single being in the cockpit held their breath, but the long canons never moved, never trained their sights upon the light freighter, they just sat in imposing silence.

"Gregor, I think your little scheme just might work." Rex said with a loud exhale.

"Heh, I told you it would." Gregor chuckled. "Never count a commando out!"

Location: The _Red Claw_\- Serenno Defense Fleet flagship

They docked without any trouble, but Ahsoka should have known that their little mission wouldn't go off without some sort of trouble. Master Kenobi liked to say that when the Force closed a door, it opened a window. What he conveniently liked to leave out was how hard that door slammed shut some times.

As the cargo bay door slowly opened, an entire squadron of battle droids was there to greet them.

"Hey, wait a minute!" exclaimed a battle droid commander. "Your access codes said you were a cargo ship! I don't see any cargo here! You're all clones!"

"So we are." Rex replied in a cool tone, leveling his pistol at the droid's head and pulled the trigger. "And there's your package."

Clones rushed out of the ship and began unleashing destruction. Soon, the entire droid squadron was down, but the clone's success was short lived. Alarms blared, and the sound of metallic feet marching down the corridors was fast approaching.

"Told you it wouldn't work, Gregor." Wolffe grimaced, holding out his pistol and waiting for the droids to come.

"Enough, both of you!" Rex barked as Gregor opened his mouth to respond. "We still got a job to do, and precious little time to do it. We're clones, brothers, and the whole galaxy is counting on us. So stop the bickering, and start fighting the clankers!"

"Now," he continued, tapping on his gauntlet where a generic map of a Separatist dreadnought appeared in front of the troops. "Click, take your troops and start creating distractions everywhere you can, and on every level besides the command deck. Wolffe, you and I are headed up there to get everything ready for a planetside invasion. Now I know the controls for Order 66 won't be on this ship, but we'll be getting nowhere near Count Dooku's castle unless we take down his shields from here."

"What about me, Captain?" Gregor asked.

"It worked like a charm on Kamino, so why change what's working? Go blow stuff up." Rex grinned.

As Gregor whooped with joy and the rest of the clones departed on their missions, Rex and Wolffe hung back. There was one other person who had one of the most important jobs of all.

"It's alright, General." Rex called. "Click and the clones are gone now."

Ahsoka's face showed how much it pained her to be hidden from her men. It chilled her to the bone to think that if they even saw her lightsaber she'd be gunned down. It wasn't right, but she and her crew would make it so.

"General, you have the most important job of all." Rex said grimly. "There are a lot of Serenno natives that clone intelligence believes have been on this ship ever since speaking out against Count Dooku's rebellion. Free them, and get them to the escape pods. Guide them down to the planet and make your way to the castle. We'll meet you there and end this once and for all."

"For the Republic." Wolffe chimed in, grimacing slightly and clutching his side.

"You hurt, soldier?" Rex asked.

"Got clipped by a blaster." Wolffe said, lifting his hand and displaying the wound. It was nasty, but Wolffe had already messily applied medi-gel to the site of the wound and seemed to be keeping everything in hand. "It's a flesh wound, captain. I can live."

"Alright then." Ahsoka said, taking out her lightsaber and igniting it. "Let's finish this."

Location: The _Red Claw_\- command bridge

Captain Rex and Commander Click stood on the command bridge, Nemoidian and droid bodies scattered all around them. Wolffe and Gregor were already at the consoles, working with blinding speed to try and bring up the castle's defenses up on screen.

"Status of the remaining ships?" Rex asked.

"The all clear signal is still being sent on a loop." Click replied. "They're gonna know something is up, but for now, we're all clear."

Rex nodded. Things were going according to plan, all things considered. Now it came time for Phase 2: the assault on Serenno.

Rex whipped out a comlink and pressed the ready button. Soon, a hooded Torgruta appeared on the holo. Rex saw Clink twitch involuntarily out of the corner of his eye. Even though he couldn't see it, he could sense Gregor getting his blaster ready in case things took a turn for the worse.

"General Tano, we're ready up on the bridge." Rex said. "We're going to start releasing the pods and letting them fall down to Serenno. Get on one of them, and meet us at the rendezvous. We're on our way."

Ahsoka nodded and ended the transmission. Seconds later, dozens of escape pods left the _Red Claw_ and rocketed towards the surface of the planet.

"Send out a signal to the rest of the fleet." Rex said, putting his helmet back on and motioning for Wolffe and Gregor to join him in heading towards their own escape pod. He noticed that Wolffe was still wincing whenever he moved, but Rex couldn't afford to make that his priority at the moment. If Wolffe said he was fit to fight, Rex was in no position to leave soldiers behind.

"Commander Click, I'm leaving you and your men in charge of the _Red Claw_." he continued. "Coordinate from here until we send up the signal from Dooku's palace. Take the next shuttle out of here, and don't look back."

"You can count on us, Captain." Click said, giving Rex a crisp salute. A little too crisp. Even though he was a good clone, through and through, the fear was getting the better of him.

"We're gonna cure you, Click." Gregor said, giving his brother a bear hug as he passed by. It was clear to all of the clones there just how much stress Click and the other clones were under. "You're gonna feel better in no time. I promise you that."

Click just nodded, motioning for his troops to take up Wolffe and Gregor's station. This was the true beauty of the Clone Army of the Republic. They were smart, brutal, effective soldiers that were capable of independent thoughts and feelings. Above all, they were able to compartmentalize whenever they were on a mission. The demons that haunted normal men haunted clones too, but they had the training to make sure that those demons only manifested when they were safe and alone. Rex knew right then and there that no matter what happened today, Click would do his duty.

"I'll be putting out a warning that there was a rad-leak on board the ship and we're sending all organics down the surface." Click called to Rex. "It won't be much, but it'll buy you a few more minutes to get the job done. Good luck, Captain."

"The same to you, Commander."

Location: Serennon - Dooku's Palace

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Ahsoka Tano wasn't at the rendezvous, and the palace still had units patrolling the usual areas. The plan was quickly going out the window, and after several minutes of waiting, Rex realized that he couldn't wait any longer. They had to continue on with the mission.

Then things started getting stranger. There were signs of a battle at various locations as they made their way through the back passages of the castle. In fact, ever since avoiding the patrols on the outside of the castle, they hadn't come across a single combat droid. What in the world was going on?

They eventually made their way to the throne room, following the trail of blaster marks and lightsaber cuts on the walls. If that wasn't enough, there was a literal trail of droid parts that a blind man could have followed by sticking out his foot and sweeping it side to side. If Rex thought that he was angry, it seemed General Tano had them all beat.

Sitting in Dooku's throne, Ahsoka Tano swiveled around to greet them with a massive grin on her face.

"Rex, Wolffe, Gregor." she chuckled. "So nice of you to make it."

"It seems General Skywalker's habit of not waiting for a plan to unfold has rubbed off on you." Rex replied with a grin of his own. It felt good. He'd had far too few of them recently.

"Eh, the droids found me before you did. I thought I'd make your job easier." she replied with a shrug, getting up from the throne and letting Rex take her seat. "Still, you're here now, let's get to it."

The files they found on Dooku's computer were incredible weapons of planetary scale destruction, a collection of sith rituals, building titles for several structures in The Works section of Coruscant, and finally Kaminoan protocols.

"Look up Clone Protocol 66." Gregor said, eyes wide and eager to know more.

Sure enough, there it was. Clone Protocol 66. An order that sent a signal to a clone's biochip that overrode the rational part of the brain and made the troops extremely susceptible to outside suggestion.

Which is where the second part of Order 66 came in. The Jedi were all to be considered rogue actors in the Grand Army of the Republic, and an order was in effect to kill on sight with the recommendation to capture if the option was easier.

The thought of captured Jedi made Ahsoka cold inside, but looking at Order 66 gave Ahsoka hope. The clones weren't evil. They were being used. The memories Ahsoka had made fighting alongside them during the Clone Wars weren't a lie. A simple flick of the switch, and they were back to normal.

And so, that's exactly what they did.

The command to cancel the order was simple. A broadcast had been sent to every single clone and ordered their biochip to inhibit their rationality, allowing for the suggestion to kill every Jedi they encountered. Now, all they had to do was send another signal that deactivated the clone's biochips. Then, the clones wouldn't have to be fighting against themselves every single waking moment.

"The signal has been sent, General." Rex said, overjoyed to see the look of relief on Ahsoka's face. "Now, we need to give them a different order. Tell them that the order is off and the Jedi are back. Care to do the honors."

Ahsoka let out a long, controlled breath. She was one with the Force, and the Force was with her.

"Attention, soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic, Order 66 is now rescinded. Effective immediately. The Jedi are not criminals, and are not enemies of the Republic. Begin rescue and medical procedures on all endangered Jedi. We will recover. We will overcome. May the Force be with you."

"Well done, General." Wolffe said. "General Koon would be proud."

"_Red Claw_, come in. This is ground team. Come in, _Red Claw_." Gregor said into his comlink. "Order 66 is over. Are you free?"

Static reigned for a few, seemingly eternal seconds. Then, the sound of thunderous cheering.

"We're free, ground team!" Click shouted, barely audible over the celebration of his men. "Our heads are our own again. Give the General our regards and apologies. We are proud to fight alongside the Jedi once more!"

"We did it!" Gregor exclaimed as Wolffe collapsed back onto the desk, nursing his wound. "Let's get us a shuttle and get out of here."

"We may want to hold off on that for a while, Gregor." Rex said. "I think there is something you all should see."

He tapped a couple of buttons and a holomap of a massive building sprung to life in the room, slowly rotating so the assembled crew could see the full view of a massive tower.

"That, my friends, is a comprehensive CIS control center." Rex said solemnly. "There are maybe four or five of those in the entire galaxy. You put the right codes in that tower's console, you shut down the Separatist army. The entire army. We have the power to end this war right now, because I have the shutdown codes right here. Dooku really did have everything here at the touch of his fingers, probably didn't trust anyone else to have it. Thank the Force for that man's paranoia."

"I sense a massive 'but' coming, Rex." Ahsoka said, the hard tone she'd had before rescinding Order 66 was back.

"But," Rex continued. "The Separatists will know we're coming. Our little stunt with Order 66 have let them know where we are. Unlike last time, there will be no 'all clear' signal. They will know we're coming, and they're gonna be sending their best. Droidekas, B-2's, commando droids, you name it. This makes our last suicide mission look like a cozy retreat to Alderaan. There's a good chance not all of us will make it."

Ahsoka stood up and walked forward, igniting her lightsaber and thrusting it right through the control center at the top of the tower.

"That's my target." Ahsoka declared. "We have a chance to end the Clone Wars right now. I can't look at my own life and say it is better than the trillions it could saved by being sacrificed for the right cause. I'm going. If any of you, for any reason, wish to leave, Count Dooku's personal shuttle is just beyond that door. I won't think any less of you, and you will live the rest of your life with the eternal gratitude of the Jedi Order."

"With all that said," she continued, pointing her lightsaber down and drew a line in the ground, scorching Dooku's expensive tile in the process. "I'm looking for volunteers. Who wants to join me in saving the galaxy?"

Every single clone in the room crossed that line.

"I'm with you, General." Rex said firmly. "Until the end of the line."

"As are we, General." Wolffe agreed.

"To victory or death!" declared Gregor.

"The Kamino Security Battalion is with you, General Tano." Click chimed in via holo. "We have a debt to pay."

"I knew I could count on you. All of you." Ahsoka said, her grin once again returning to her face. If she was going to die, at least she would die among friends.

"Now, let's go win this war."


	8. Chapter 7: Trust in the Force

**Chapter 7: Trust in the Force**

**Location: Zygerria - The Great Pyramid**

In the heart of the Zygerrian Slave Empire, on their homeworld that shared its name, there exists a structure that represented the height of Zygerrian power. To most people, it didn't exist. It wasn't supposed to be something that they notice, for they were slaves and shouldn't look to the skies. But for those free beings on Zygerria, all they had to do was look up to the skies about their capital city and see what they referred to as the Great Pyramid.

They didn't know its actual name. Most people who came and went from their were either too scared to speak of what they saw, or never heard from again. And though most never spoke of what went on inside the Great Pyramid, everyone seemed to have some sort of idea: the Great Pyramid was the greatest slave processing center in the entire Zygerrian Slave Empire.

It was a brilliant idea. Zygerrians had built their slave centers at high altitudes for millenia. The message of being able to dispose of useless or rebellious slaves so easily was something that no living being could ignore. One swift kick was all it would take. They didn't even have to kick if they didn't want to. There were levers and buttons that could drop the floor right out from underneath the hapless slaves.

The Great Pyramid was, in essence, the very embodiment of what the Zygerrians wanted to display to their galaxy about their empire. It was massive, obscene, and imposing. Should a poor slave on the planet's surface ever have the misfortune to look up at the sky, what they saw would remove what little hope they had left. As long as the Great Pyramid hovered over their heads, the slaves of the Zygerrian Slave Empire could never be free.

Which is why it was such a good target.

A Corona-class armed frigate jumped out of hyperspace and immediately started blaring its message loud and clear to any and all ships in the area.

Pirates had captured two Jedi, and were ready to sell them.

The Zygerrians couldn't believe their luck. Jedi? At this time? They had all vanished after their clones had turned on them. How in the world had lowly pirates managed to capture two?

Then word reached the Zygerrian government that the two Jedi the pirates had captured were Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. They almost lost their minds. These weren't two ordinary Jedi. These were the two black souls that had destroyed their resurgence under the Separatists. For almost two years, the names Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker were the darkest names one could utter. Oaths had been sworn to see them to an early grave, to break them and make them slaves before the mightiest of all the Zygerrian slavers. Unspeakable deeds would be done on them, and now instead of having to track them across the galaxy, they had been delivered right to their doorstep.

The brightest of minds should have sensed a trap. They should have known that it was all too good to be true, that Kenobi and Skywalker would never have been captured so easily, but rage has a way of making even the wisest see only what they wish to see. Far from feeling caution at the news, almost the entirety of the Zygerrian government flew to the Great Pyramid in order to see the two Jedi brought low and humbled before them.

As Obi-Wan and Anakin were pushed out of Hondo's ship, the splendor of the royal government far outweighed the drabness of the guards on hand for the transfer. The Jedi were seemed nonplussed about the turn of events, but Hondo's crew had wide eyes and tight hands on their blasters.

"Steady boys, steady." Hondo murmured, displaying a big grin to try and show the Zygerrians he meant no harm.

"We're fine, Hondo." Anakin growled. "Don't tell us to be steady."

Obi-Wan just let out a sigh. "He's talking to his men, Anakin. This may surprise you, but most people are not all that thrilled about taking on an entire empire of slavers on their own."

"Your friend might be a little rough around the edges, but is he wrong?" Hondo asked. "I have pulled off some spectacular displays of thieving during my long and illustrious career, but this might be taking it too far."

"It will work." Obi-Wan replied calmly, his resolve clear in his tone. "All that remains is for us to trust in the Force."

That elicited a chuckle from Hondo. Not one of his fake laughs either, the ones that he used to either lull enemies into a false sense of confidence, inspire confidence in his men, or bluff his way out of any of his failed schemes.

"Heh, trust in the 'Force'. That is a good one Kenobi. Tell me, what does your mystical magical Force do that would let me trust it?"

"It surrounds us all, Hondo." Obi-Wan said. "Binding us all together, making us a part of something greater than we would be without. Do not underestimate it, my friend, it may see you through this day."

"I think my two blasters will take care of that." Hondo said. "But feel free to use your little religion to make you feel better. I can take care of myself."

"I'm sure you can, let's just ensure that we all remember our parts and keep calm heads."

"All of us." Obi-Wan continued, shooting a glance at Anakin that told the younger Jedi this was neither the time nor place to air out grievances.

Anakin's only response was to shrug and return to glaring at the Zygerrian royalty as they marched along. His feelings about slavery were harder and harder to control the closer he got to them. He's tried to repress the feelings he'd had the last time he was on the Force-forsaken planet, but they were back now. His right fist clenched tightly, shaking uncontrollably. So hard, in fact, that the loosened cuffs he had on began to slip.

The slipping magcuffs startled Anakin back to reality, where he secretly made sure that his bindings looked correct. It wouldn't do to have his ruse exposed until it was the right moment.

"This is not going to work, Master." he warned, looking down at Obi-Wan's cuffs and seeing that like his, a close inspection would reveal that their magcuffs weren't activated, and that there were suspicious, lightsaber shaped bulges in their tunics.

"Well Anakin, it's a little late for hesitation." Obi-Wan replied drolly. "Why didn't you say something before!"

"I did say something before!" Anakin exclaimed.

"Ahem, silence, captives!" Hondo interjected as they got within earshot of the Zygerrians. It wouldn't do to have them acting like they were in control when there was a slavery exchange to take place.

Hondo was all smiles as he and his crew shoved Obi-Wan and Anakin ahead with their blasters. A Zygerrian captain approached accompanied by a full squadron of guards, polearms charged with energy and ready to dispense pain upon any who got on their bad side.

"My friends, my friends, greetings!" Hondo said, arms open wide, though not wide enough to expose the various blasters he had hidden in his coat. "I bring before you, the infamous Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the vile, treacherous, downright hideous Anakin Skywalker!"

The Zygerrian was clearly impressed, a look of pure malice on his face as he grabbed Anakin's face and roughly examined it. "This one has been a target of our glorious empire for sometime now. Our radiant queen was killed while in the presence of this scum. We have… questions for him."

The captain yanked Anakin away, giving him a rough shove that Obi-Wan saw almost made his friend snap right then and there. Before he could start anything, Hondo's objection came quickly to the unusual occurrence.

"My friend, although I don't care for how you treat a slave, this is just bad business!" he exclaimed. "You have not bought him yet, and I don't want my stock tampered with before I get my money."

Hondo's men were getting restless. Getting separated from a Jedi? And the one that was better at fighting? This was not the plan, not even close. They were simple pirates, not trained soldiers or spies. The whole plan was already out of their comfort zone, and deviating from that plan was most definitely not something they would handle well.

Hondo knew it too. One of his men in particular, Sabo, was anxiously touching his holster and the Zygerrians were beginning to expect that something was wrong. And to make matters worse, Kenobi was just standing there and passively staring at the proceedings, as if he was just waiting for what came next.

Come to think of it, he was probably the only one still playing his role like he should.

"This is all getting a little out of hand." Hondo grinned, trying to get control of the situation again. "Let us negotiate price, shall we? I have heard many tales of the ruthless businessmen that Zygerria produces, let's put that to the test!"

He pulled out a tablet and began punching numbers into it, muttering furiously as he did so.

"Let us see here, two Jedi, both war heroes, high value targets, compensation for dead crew members when we tried to capture them, fuel, finders fee, preferred customer rates, and I say I'm looking at close to a million credits!"

Zygerrians all the way up on the balcony who heard him started chuckling at that.

The captain just sneered at them, enjoying the pathetic bargaining from a creature he felt to be his inferior. "I don't handle prices. You will take what we give you. If you don't like it, perhaps we enslave you as well, place your cages in the streets so all can see what happens when you refuse our generosity."

"You have already taken one of my slaves!" Hondo exclaimed. "My friends, all I want is to get paid and to be on my way. You would not cheat such a humble and honest man as myself?"

"Like I said, I don't handle prices." the captain sneered as he cupped a hand to his head to better hear an incoming call.

"Well Kenobi, I think this is where I leave you." Hondo murmured. "Our friends don't seem to be in the most hospitable mood. I think it's best if I get my gold and get out of here. Best of luck with your war. I'll be expecting my medal after all of this is over."

"That and your pardon, my friend." Obi-Wan replied. "Thank you for your assistance. May the Force be with you."

"Yes yes, but I'd rather have the gold be with me than your Force." came the pirates reply. "Take care Kenobi, let me know if you want to deal with any more slavers. I sense a profitable business on our horizons. In fact, let me know if you have other Jedi that are interested. I could make a fortune!"

"We're all set, Captain Onaka." the Zygerrian captain growled, returning to the conversation. "I just have one minor problem to get cleared up."

In a flash, the electric polearms the guards carried were leveled at the pirates and the captain's blaster was pointed right at Hondo's face.

"Why were Skywalker's restraints loose and his lightsaber in his tunic?"

The pirates, to their credit, responded quickly to the crisis. Blasters were pulled out at lightning speed but they men behind the triggers had enough sense not to fire yet.

"Ah, well there is an easy explanation for all of this." Hondo said, his chuckle much weaker than the one he had given to the captain minutes before. "I am sure we can all walk away from this and laugh about it years from now. We can all sit there and laugh about this and recall the day we almost died instead of making piles of money."

Sabo was getting twitchier. Obi-Wan could see that his eyes were darting furiously between the guards, looking for a body to pump full of blaster bolts. Obi-Wan tried to issue a warning as subtly as he could towards Hondo, and it looked as though the Weequay was also worried about his man.

"How about this, you give us half for Skywalker, and we give you Kenobi at full price." Hondo bargained. "Better yet, take Skywalker for free, half for Kenobi, and pay for our fuel and we'll be on our way."

"Let me check Kenobi." the guard said firmly. "We know that Skywalker is prone to tricking his captors, but if Kenobi also has his bindings loosened and I find his lightsaber… then you are all coming with me."

"Of course, of course." Hondo hastily agreed. "Now come, get over here Kenobi. Let the good man check and see that everything is in order."

"And Kenobi, there shall be no _trickery_, understood?" he added, almost too theatrically, but the Zygerrians were all too interested in the Jedi before them. Obi-Wan had been on Zygerria too, and although they truly harbored hatred towards Skywalker, they were more than happy to see him suffer as well.

As the slave captain moved closer to inspect Obi-Wan, the Jedi moved his hand in a small wave right in front of the slaver, subtle enough not to draw the attention of the guards looking to fight the pirates they were staring off with.

"There is nothing wrong with my restraints." Obi-Wan said.

"There… There is nothing wrong with your restraints." the Zygerrian intoned, shaking his head as if getting rid of a buzzing insect. Clearly the captain was at the very edge of the parameters of a Jedi mind trick's success. The pirates could sense it, and started to become more agitated.

"You don't see my lightsaber inside my tunic."

"I… I… need to check- no. I don't see a lightsaber inside your tunic." the captain said, veins bulging in his head as he tried to resist Kenobi's dominating will. "I… want to see-"

It was all too much for poor Sabo. The poor pirate couldn't take the pressure anymore and saw the captain twitch in a halting motion towards his own blaster. Sabo's blaster punched a hole clean through the Zygerrian's skull and for one brief moment, the whole world stood still as if it was taking a deep breath before the plunge.

Then chaos erupted.

It was almost impossible for Hondo to track exactly what was going on. Blasters were firing everywhere, both from his own men and the Zygerrians. Some fool of his had chucked a thermal detonator next to a refueling station on the platform, and once the effects of the explosion had worn off, half of the platform was covered in black, acrid smoke.

Still, he was Hondo Onaka, the Fearsome Phantom of Florum! No smoke would inconvenience him! As the government officials fell over one another to scramble back into the safety of the base itself, their guards were distracted and Hondo took advantage of that. As the soldiers debated whether to follow their charges to safety or deal with the invaders, they soon found themselves riddled with blaster bolts and fell to the ground with looks of agony on their faces. Though most widely known for his wits and silver tongue, Hondo Onaka was a deadly shot, and with a pistol in each hand he was a veritable whirlwind of death.

Still, Weequays didn't have eyes in the back of their head, and several guards had gotten the drop on him. Although it was almost imperceptible, he heard the telltale signs of several blasters being primed and pointed right at him. It appeared his journey had reached its end. In mere seconds, he was going to be blasted so many times he would be little more than hot ash. Still, it wasn't the worst way to go, he just regretted he'd never get to collect a Zabrak mercenary's money from years ago. The man had bet Hondo would die from getting shot by his own men.

Then the most peculiar thing happened. A loud _*thrum*_ filled his ears and his nose detected the hint of burning ozone. Shouts were heard soon after, and Hondo wheeled around, curious as to why he had avoided death.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was a lethal fury made manifest. His lightsaber danced to and fro as he expertly parried every single strike from a guard's polestaff or deflected their blaster bolts. It amazed that pirate captain that it didn't even look like Kenobi was trying. Though he had seemingly leapt right into the middle of the group and attacked them in the precious seconds before they could kill the Weequay, the Jedi's face betrayed no sense of strain or inconvenience.

One by one, they all fell before his lightsaber, and soon Kenobi was standing alone surrounded by easily a dozen dead Zygerrians, all taken out with breathtaking speed and skill. It made Hondo think that he was lucky to even be standing here, and not just because Kenobi had saved his life. Back when he had truly captured him, he had the sinking feeling that Kenobi could have slaughtered them all at their base if he had chosen to do so. Maybe there was something to this 'Force' thing after all. Jedi were not to be messed with.

"I think that makes us even, Hondo." Obi-Wan called out, a light grin on his face.

"Ah, so it does Kenobi, do it does." Hondo said, marching forward and clapping the Jedi on the shoulder.

"Well, this has been a total waste of my time, and I know a bad bargain when I see one." Hondo continued, straightening his jacket and marching off briskly into the midst of his men who were still fighting for their lives. "I think it's time I was leaving. So long Kenobi, I should say let's do this again, but I never want to be anywhere near this planet. Clearly it's hazardous for my health. Best of luck to you and Skywalker, feel free to never talk to me again!"

He punched more commands into his communicator and the pirate vessel soon roared to life, engines blazing and canons firing onto the Zygerrian base. The Zygerrians were caught off guard, and dove for cover as the canons blasted apart the walls at their backs and the floor under their feet.

"Hah! I even made a new door for you!" he shouted, gesturing over to the massive hole his ship had made in the side of the large tower at the center of the platform. Even better, I'll give it to you for free!"

The ship swooped down low over the pyramid, hovering mere feet above the platform itself. Hondo's pirates scrambled over one another in a desperate attempt to get on board the ship as the crew onboard lowered the ramp and soon dozens of Weequays were pushing each other out of the way in order to be clear of the chaos on the ground.

"Take care Kenobi!" Hondo called as he casually sauntered over to his craft. "Don't call again!"

Before he could board his own craft, disaster struck. The Zygerrian anti-air batteries came online, and chewed right through the outer hull of Hondo's ship.

"Boss, we've been hit!" came a panicked call on Hondo's comlink. "I can't control it! They hit the engines."

With a metallic screech, Hondo's ship crashed into the Great Pyramid's platform and dragged itself along the surface before finally reaching the edge and plummeting down onto the city below. The explosion was so massive, Obi-Wan, Hondo, and the pitiful remainder of his crew that hadn't boarded the craft yet saw the top part of the blast as it gently crested over the pyramid's base.

Hondo just let out a defeated sigh and slumped his shoulders. Today just wasn't his day. His mother had never been there for him, but if she had been, Hondo was sure that she would have said to never deal with Jedi. It gets very expensive to do so.

"So… it looks like we'll be stuck together for a bit longer." Obi-Wan said with a massive grin on his face. Hondo thought that Jedi were supposed to be emotionless, neutral enforcers of all that justice nonsense, but he could have sworn Kenobi was enjoying this. "Care to join me as I go inside."

Hondo had a grin of his own, and a ready response to go along with it.

"You know Kenobi, I just had a better idea than leaving. I don't want it getting out that Hondo Onaka leaves a job half finished. We'll get you to where you need to go, and we'll get even more gold when we do, less people to share it with!"

That seemed to get his crew back in good spirits. They started cheering, and gathering up any blasters or supplies they could find as they geared up for an assault on the base itself.

"Trust in the Force indeed, Obi-Wan Kenobi." Hondo murmured as he pondered just how strange his fate had been as of late. "Trust in the Force indeed."


	9. Chapter 8: Deadly Secrets

**Chapter 8: Deadly Secrets**

Location: Coruscant - 500 Republica

Padme Amidala looked down at her holoterminal in deep concentration, a cup of calming Naboo tea clutched firmly in her hands.

Though she was unable to go with Bail Organa in his investigation of former Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's schemes, she refused to idly sit in her apartment and do nothing. Her friends were counting on her. The Jedi Order was counting on her.

Anakin was counting on her.

It had been torture, to be away from him for so long. Even though it had only been a week that they had been apart, a pathetically short time compared to their separations during the Clone Wars, they had been able to steal away a secret chat with the other in the past. Even when that failed, she was always able to somehow feel that he was safe.

Now, she could only sense that he was in danger. There was a darkness surrounding him. Even with Palpatine gone, it still felt like Anakin could lose himself.

It made her extremely worried for him, and that fear was making her careless.

The holonet was a veritable treasure trove of information, provided that someone knew where to look. Back on Naboo, Padme had undergone extensive training on holonet security. She had been taught how to defend herself against such attacks, and protect her information from those who would seek to use it against her and her family. Though her instructors had refused to teach them how to attack others to gain their information, and had made all of their students swear to only use this knowledge for defense, it wasn't much effort for Padme to use her skills on the holonet to hack and infiltrate.

She didn't feel all that guilty about it either, as she was currently using those skills to break into building schematics for the Coruscant Security Forensics Archives in an effort to redeem her husband and his order.

Padme was grateful for how detailed their schematics were. A couple of reroutes, and she had complete access to every single sensor, monitor, and security droid in the area. Quite handy for the mischief she was up to.

* * *

Location: The Works - Coruscant Security Forensics Archive

"How close am I?" Bail asked over the comlink.

"Not fair, Bail." Padme replied. "Three rows down, a hundred yards in."

The Forensics Archives were massive, a depository for all evidence for pending cases. Due to the vast sea of bureaucracy that permeated every single level of the Galactic Republic, it was not uncommon to find centuries worth of backlogged evidence gathering dust, never seeing the light of day. It was the perfect place to put something that you wanted buried and forgotten.

A couple of bribes here, a discreet eavesdropping there, and the two senators had discovered that the spider holodroid had been stored here after the Battle of Coruscant. Padme was sure that if Palpatine had gotten his way, this would have been yet another shadowy plot that would have never seen the light of day.

"Are you sure this is the way?" Bail panted, slightly winded. The corridors seemed to go on forever. He was worried that he had passed it, or that Padme had sent him down the wrong hall in the first place.

"Relax. I know this is the way. It shouldn't be long now." she chided him, sounding for all the world like a teacher scolding an impatient child.

He was cursing his luck that Padme couldn't come with him. It was dangerous to be in this part of the planet. The Works had once been a manufacturing juggernaut, but its fortune had faded over time, and the abandoned factories that proved to be an excellent haven for the various criminal gangs while the crumbling government presence in the area desperately tried to keep up the facade that was still in control. Hence, placing their auxiliary archives in the area.

Every single time Bail passed another archive bank, he worried that he'd be greeted by the business end of a blaster. The logical part of his brain told him not to worry, that Padme was tracking all of the sensors from her holoterminal, but that didn't help with the growing sense of paranoia he had. His own blaster was drawn and at the ready, but he knew that he was a politician at heart, not a soldier. By the time that Bail fired off a round, he'd already be dead.

"One second!" came Padme's nervous bark over the radio. "I've got motion detected ahead. Something is headed your way."

He paused mid stride, aiming his blaster out ahead of him into the darkness. The archives weren't supposed to have anyone in them right now. They didn't need to be lit up and ready to assist. Padme's ability to 'stealth' him for this journey was handy for covering their tracks, but it made walking difficult. There were only the dark blue emergency lights covering the floor, and those gave Bail only scant information about what was coming his way. All he could really rely on were his own senses, and those were of precious little help since his heart was beating so loud it drowned out almost all other noise.

But Bail needn't have worried. The only thing coming down the corridor was a stocky little forensics droid, hovering cheerfully and waiting to help him with whatever problems he had.

"Senator Organa!" the droid chirped. "So good to see you again. If I may say so, I am glad you decided to regrow your hair. You looked too much like a clone trooper with your previous cut."

"I'm sorry, but do I know you?" Bail asked, utterly perplexed how this droid knew his name.

"You should, we have a pleasant conversation several days ago." the droid said with a repulsor swoop that looked almost like a bow. "I am FD-2149, forensic archival droid, at your service once again."

Rex had mentioned something about a circuit-scrambled droid that had assisted them in making the Tyrannus/Dooku connection. If this was the same archive that housed the _Invisible Hand_… it seemed like Palpatine had a favorite storage location. Bail privately wondered how many other hidden secrets there may be throughout the area.

"Ah yes, EffDee. I remember you now." Bail said after clearing his throat and getting his bearings. "I am in need of your service once again. Do you happen to know where I might be able to find a spider holodroid? One that was previously used by Nute Gunray of the Trade Federation?"

"I most certainly do!" trilled FD. "Right this way, Senator. Before we go though, it appears that you did not trigger the automatic lights and guidance directory on your way in. Congratulations on losing enough weight for the sensors to ignore you! Allow me to enable them for your convenience."

"No, that's not really nece-" Bail began, but it was too late. FD's eyes blinked off and on rapidly, communicating with the central hub, and the lights flared to life, illuminating the archives and giving Bail more than a little pause at just how massive it was. He needed to reevaluate how long certain items might be stored in this place. They could have been forgotten for thousands of years in this place.

As the bright lights shone down on him and he squinted while his eyes adjusted, Bail hoped that there were no squatters in this part of the archives. He didn't want to be disturbed any more than he had to be.

He was right to worry.

Several hundred yards away, a container was alerted to the activation of the archive's guidance protocol and it flared to life as it always did when carbon based life forms were detected.

Inside was the reason that there were no gangsters or urchins dwelling within this particular building. An assassin probe droid climbed out of its coffin, using its spidery legs to cling to the ceiling as it shadowed Bail Organa and FD-2491 on their journey. Normally it let highly ranked targets like Organa go about their business. Street rats weren't missed by anybody, and usually went snooping where they weren't supposed to. It was necessary and efficient to eliminate them. The probe calculated that five more bodies would be all it took for the archive to develop a reputation that would make it so undesirable to squatters that it wouldn't have to be nearly as active in its patrols. As long as Organa stayed away from any of the 67 flagged items in the probe's programming, he would live.

But the Senator did keep getting closer. It seemed like his destination was a spider holodroid, an item that was tagged for the probe as 'high priority protection'.

It seemed like there would need to be only four more bodies after tonight that the probe had to kill. Three, if it could frame the corpse in an intimidating position.

* * *

Location: Coruscant - 500 Republica

"I can see the holodroid on my terminal, Bail." Padme said, sipping on her fourth cup of tea for the evening. "Just a few more feet and you should be there."

"This organizational system makes no sense." she heard her friend grumble. "I just passed a Phase Two clone helmet next to a disembodied B-2 battledroid blasterarm. What in the world is going on here, EffDee?"

"Much of this is gear collected from the Battle of Coruscant, Senator Organa." came the droid's cheerful reply. "We ran out of room and my programming had me place it here. Do not worry, nobody has called this droid in over ten years. I am sure they will understand if your background is a little cluttered if you need to reach someone."

"Alright, I'm at the access point." Bail said. "Plugging the hololink in now."

Soon, mountains of data flooded onto Padme's terminal. Most of it was junk, manufacturing information and a few copyright secrets dealing with its fabrication. She wasn't interested in that right now. What she really wanted was any recordings of past conversations.

_[accessing recording archives…]_

_[recordings found]_

_[File 1]_

_[File 2]_

_[File 3]_

Bail was still talking to her through the comlink, probably trying to keep himself from losing it due to the stress, but all Padme could offer him was the occasional affirmative grunt or supportive head nod. She was in her element now. The answer was almost in her grasp. She could feel it.

The key piece of evidence came on file number three.

"This turn of events is unfortunate. We must accelerate our plans. Begin landing your troops."

It was Palpatine. She could hear his voice coming out of the hooded figure's mouth, but she didn't quite have enough to make a positive identification of his face.

"My lord, is that legal?" came Gunray's sniveling protest.

"I will make it legal."

"And the Jedi?"

"The Chancellor should never have brought them into this. Kill them immediately."

There it was. It was small, almost imperceptible, but it was there. Palpatine's rage for the Jedi had made his otherwise calm features snarl just a bit. Not enough to even move his hood, but the light source nearby had thrown just a tad more illumination upon his face. It might not have moved his hood, but it did give her a positive identification.

_capture facial features. Store to .PalpatineSith_

_[facial capture confirmed. trace location? y/n]_

_y_

Even better, it had seemed the Nemoidians had called Palpatine at a bad time. All the other files had been from a location in The Works that Padme hadn't even bothered checking, knowing it would take her years to work through the red tape and dummy corporations Palpatine had rented the factory through. But this time, it seems as though Gunray had panicked when Qui-Gon Jinn had boarded his vessel. Palpatine hadn't taken the call in The Works. He'd taken it from his senatorial office in the Senate Building.

This was good. Very good. Enough to get a preliminary case going. Even so, she knew she wanted more. There was other information on this device. And soon, she would have all of it.

_[New login detected]_

Well wasn't that interesting? It appeared that she wasn't the only one interested in what was on that holodroid. Perhaps the guidance protocols at the archive activating had made them paranoid and they couldn't resist the temptation to make sure everything was still safe under wraps. Their paranoia was going to cost them.

_run . triangulate coordinates. send to amidalaapartment.500Republica_

_[tracing…]_

_[tracing…]_

_[triangulating…]_

_[coordinates sent]_

_[accept call? y/n]_

Her heart dropped. The mysterious partner was calling her. What a fool she'd been. The partner had tripped her sensors on purpose, making her reveal herself before she could even do anything with the information she had just uncovered. It didn't matter whether she answered the call or not. They already knew who she was, where she was, and it didn't take a massive leap in logic to guess what she was trying to do.

"Bail!" she screamed, suddenly realizing she wasn't the only one in danger. "I've been compromised! You have to get out of there now!"

All she saw was a blur on the camera near where the holodroid was located, and before she could even properly comprehend what was happening, an assassin probe droid dropped from the ceiling and rushed her friend before he could even react.

"BAIL!" she yelled, typing furiously on her keyboard, hoping there was something that she could do to help him, but it was fruitless. She was going to watch a good fried die right in front of her.

Politician though he was, Senator Bail Organa was no coward. Padme saw him fight back valiantly, wrestling with the droid, barely avoiding its razor sharp pincers. He unloaded several shots into the belly of the assassin, but it was built to withstand such punishment. It did give him a few precious seconds of freedom, which he used to roll away from his would-be killer and stumble onto a pile of discarded clone utility belts.

She couldn't believe her eyes as he started rummaging through the belts, looking for something only he knew. Why didn't he run away? Why didn't he try to find a heavier blaster? Had the impact with the chassis of the droid scrambled his brain?

Padme saw what he was doing soon enough. As the assassin probe righted itself, Bail produced what he had been looking for in the midst of all those belts: an EMP grenade.

"Don't do it." she muttered, looking at him and shaking her head at the monitor. "You'll blow up the archive. You don't know if it's stable or not. Just run, Bail. Run and take your chances. Get out of there!"

He didn't hear her. With a mechanical snarl, the probe leapt through the air, all of its legs intent of piercing one of the Bail's vital organs. It didn't even get close.

A brilliant flash of white light filled her monitor as a wave of crackling blue electricity swept over the camera Padme was watching through. After a second of blackness, all that remained on the screen was digital snow.

_[cameras disabled]_

_[motion sensors disabled]_

_[on-site console access disabled]_

_[archive offline. Reconnect? y/n]_

Padme wailed in frustration. Slamming her hands down hard on the table. Bail wasn't dead. He couldn't be. It was what she kept trying to tell herself, but it never seemed to sound quite right in her head.

Strange, even though the terminal said the archive was offline, she thought she heard the sound of blaster fire.

It hit her like a bolt of lightning. That wasn't coming from the monitor. It was coming from outside her apartment.

"Captain Tycho, report!" Padme barked, suddenly glad that she hadn't made him go with Bail after all. She knew it was a cruel thing to think, but even though she had risked Bail's life, Tycho might save her own.

If he could still answer his comlink.

"Captain Tycho, please respond!" she pleaded.

Heavy breathing greeted her from the other end of the comlink.

"Captain Tycho can't be reached right now." came a low, dreadful voice from the other end. "He's a little… preoccupied at the moment."

The doors to her apartment swung open. Someone had used Tycho's access card to get in. Thanking the architect of her apartment for not making the kitchen visible from the doorway, Padme immediately ran from the room and towards safer areas of her apartment, knowing she only had seconds before the killer was upon her.

"Senator Amidala, Mas Amedda sends his regards." it called, casting a long, humanoid shadow across the entryway to the apartment.

"Time to die."

(**A.N.** Hi everyone, and thank you for your patience with me and my slow writing process for _Star Wars: Heralds of the Force_. I have never attempted anything like this before, and sometimes my rookie nature shows. The writer's block hit me HARD this time, and I probably rewrote this thing five times before finally deciding on what you just read. I apologize, and I hope that I've learned enough strategies to make this go quicker next time.

I really have some neat ideas planned for how things will go in the future, but I also want to make sure I'm listening to any feedback you, my faithful readers have. What do you want my next section to be about? Obi-Wan's new and improvised plan for how to deal with the Zygerrians? Ahsoka and Co. ending the droid Army of the Confederacy? Anakin facing his demons under torture from the Zygerrians? A one-off story of Mace Windu rescuing stranded Padawans from a group of Black Suns and their shadowy buyer? Let me know, and I'll see what I can do! Thank you all so much for reading. Your support means everything to me. May the Force be with you!

-Klick)


	10. Chapter 9: Victory and Sacrifice

**Chapter 9: Victory and Sacrifice**

Location: Serenno - Droid Control Center

"There's too many of them." Rex growled, clutching his twin blasters tightly. "We'll never make it."

Ahsoka always tried to look on the positive side, but even she had to admit her friend was right. In front of them, an entire droid army was guarding the route towards the control tower.

The tactical droid in command must have anticipated this as soon as Ahsoka's strike force tripped the security protocols on Dooku's personal terminal. Thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of battle droids stood eerily still, their electronic eyes gazing out onto the surrounding area. The moment the strike force tried to get clear of the castle, those B-1 battle droids, or the dozens of spider droids, or even the AATs would reduce them to radioactive atoms.

"Ok, so there's too many of them for a straight up fight." she agreed begrudgingly.

"Oh come on, I could do it!" Wrecker protested. "Let me blow up an AAT, take its door as a shield, and it'll all be fine! We'll shut down their precious little command functions before most of them even aim at us!"

"Come on Wrecker, you know you can't cover all of us." Hunter replied. "Besides, it's over two hundred meters to the front of that tower, and then we have to break in, override the droid army controls, and escape all while under a hail of blaster fire."

"Well then what do we do?" Wolffe asked, already grumpy from the wound on his side. "Standing here won't solve anything, and every second we delay, the more of our brothers die!"

Ahsoka put a hand on the clone's shoulder to calm him down.

"I know, Wolffe." she said calmly. "But getting angry won't solve anything. Let's think about it rationally."

"Actually, General, I think it's time we looked at things _irrationally_." Rex grinned. "Let's take a page out of General Skywalker's playbook."

He motioned for Ahsoka's comlink, and she gave it to him, a curious expression etched on her face.

"Rex to flagship. Come in Click, this is Rex!"

"I hear you, Rex." came the crackling answer from the comlink. "How can we help?"

"Got a lot of clankers between us and the control tower." Rex replied. "Way too many for us to deal with, despite Wrecker's insistence otherwise"

This led to the largest member to let out a small snort and grumble something under his breath that Ahsoka couldn't quite make out.

"You got anything up on that ship of yours that might help?" the captain continued, his face equal parts worried and hopeful.

There was silence from the comlink for a long time. Long enough that Rex and Wolfe were starting to share worried glances that said they were worried about the same thing: perhaps Order 66 wasn't so easy to shut off after all.

"Click?"

"Still here Rex." Ahsoka heard an audible sigh of relief from her companions. "But we got a problem up here. Several, actually."

Ahsoka looked up at the sky, as did her companions.

"Yeah…" Rex said with a resigned tone. "That's gonna be a problem."

The droids had figured out that something was wrong aboard _The Red Claw_. The enemy had taken control and their flagship was compromised. Orders had come from Dooku's castle on Serenno, even though his command codes had been discontinued on Grevious' authority. As Ahsoka looked at the upper atmosphere of Serenno, she saw that nearly the entire defense fleet was converging on the _Claw_'s position.

"Get to an escape pod and rendezvous with us on the ground, Click." Rex ordered. "We'll figure out what to do from there."

Silence from the comlink again.

"Click?"

"Apologies, captain. I'll be ignoring that order." Click replied, his tone oddly peaceful for someone in such a precarious position. "Me and the boys found ourselves a better solution to this little problem of yours."

His tone was the final piece of the puzzle Ahsoka didn't even know she was looking for, and a look of horror spread across her face as she realized what the commander was about to do.

"Click, stop!" she yelled, hoping against reason that she could somehow convince him how wrong this was. "There has to be another way! It's not too late!"

"It is now." came Click's calm reply. "I took advantage of that silence several minutes ago to overload the reactor. Even if I wanted to, there's no stopping what's about to come."

Rex's face now had the same look of horror that Ahsoka's had. It was obvious what he was going to do now.

"You're not the first Jedi I've spoken to since Order 66 was given." Click continued. "But you are the first that's survived the process. I've done… things that I'm not proud of. Things that would haunt my dreams until my dying day if I let it."

"Click, you stupid, stubborn man." Wolfe moaned, looking up at the sky in disbelief.

"But I found a way to make it right." the commander said, his voice carrying the strain he clearly felt. The cool and calm presence he had displayed before seemed to be abandoned now, so close to the end. "The boys made a quick calculation, and we positioned ourselves just right. The debris should give you a nice bit of cover, and the general should be able to guide you all through it. Please… let me make this right. Let me atone for sins beyond forgiveness. Well, almost beyond forgiveness."

Ahsoka's eyes were so full of tears she almost couldn't make out the ships in orbit above them. The Clone Wars were almost over, but it seemed that it still had more lives it wanted to take in its own death throes.

"Thank you, Click."

"No, general. Thank you." he said, his voice at peace once again. "I'm glad I could still be of service one more time."

"For the Republic!"

The explosion was so bright that the entire squad, helmeted or not, had to shield their eyes and turn away from the blast. Even tens of thousands of miles away, they could still feel the faintest of ripples as the almost incomprehensible force of the reactor's explosion washed over them. Ahsoka knew that it had wiped out the entire defense fleet, and now all that debris was about to rain down all around them.

"Get ready." Ahsoka said, wiping the tears from her eyes and making sure her lightsaber was securely fastened to her belt. It was going to be a rough run.

A roar was growing all around them as chunks of fire grew larger and larger. Debris from the recently obliterated Serenno Defense Fleet was about to impact all around them. Dangerous, to be sure. But it was providing them with some much needed cover.

"Run!" Ahsoka screamed as remnants of the once mighty ships hit the open field between the castle and the control tower. The Jedi Knight took off running with incredible speed with the clones following close behind. It was pure chaos. Smoke, fire, and the screams of dismantled droids filled the air as they weaved back and forth across the warzone.

All of a sudden, a chunk of metal too large to sidestep impacted right in front of them. Ahsoka barely stopped in time to avoid getting crushed and still found herself thrown several meters away by the force of its impact. Gregor wasn't so lucky. One minute he was beside her laughing up a storm as he rushed forward, the next he disappeared in a ball of fire.

Struggling to her feet, she tried to cough up the dirt and smoke that was filling her lungs. It was everywhere. The size and amount of impacts scattered across the field had created a smoky haze that made visibility almost impossible. The only bearing she was able to get was the control tower itself, and that was only because she heard the ray shielding go down under the tremendous bombardment it had sustained. Although she hated to admit it, it was a quality piece of engineering, and she was grateful that the Separatists had decided to go for quantity over quality in their battle droids. If their droids were as durable as that tower, the Republic never stood a chance.

But as she soon learned, quantity had advantages of its own. Despite the horrific carnage of the orbital 'bombardment', hundreds of battle droids had survived out of the original tens of thousands. Several of them were converging on Ahsoka's position at the moment, and soon the air reeked of burning ozone as Ahsoka ignited her main lightsaber and adopted her preferred reverse Shien grip to deflect their blaster fire.

"Rex?" she called as she hastily dismantled droid after droid. "Wolffe? Hunter?"

Her calls were soon answered as several droids fell at her feet, smoking blaster holes in their chassis. Captain Rex emerged from the smoke, coughing and wheezing much like Ahsoka was. Wolffe was in even worse shape. His helmet had been ripped off, and there was a worrying amount of blood pouring from a cut on his head. The wound he had sustained previously was clearly still affecting him and appeared to be even worse. He couldn't hold a blaster and Rex had to half carry him as they staggered towards Ahsoka and her lightsaber.

"Glad we found you, General." Rex wheezed. "Can't see anything in this blasted smoke. Did you find Gregor?"

"Dead." she said flatly. Both Rex and Wolffe looked away. Gregor had been close to both of them, Wolffe especially. It was clear they didn't want to dwell on it, not now.

"Did you see Clone Force 99 at all?" she asked, taking Wolffe's arm around her shoulder so as to allow Rex to use both of his pistols.

"Negative." came Rex's terse reply. "Only reason we found you was because of your lightsaber's glow. Amazed that we can even hear you, with as loud as that all was."

Ahsoka just sighed. The plan was falling apart, if she could even still call this chaos a plan. Her squadron was decimated, only her and Rex were still in fighting shape, and there were still hundreds of droids between them and the tower. It seemed hopeless.

Rex saw her shoulders slump, and stopped firing at the converging droids the moment there was a lull in their advance.

"Don't give up now, General." he said reassuringly, taking off his helmet and flashing her a small, cocky smile. "I've seen you and General Skywalker get out of spots much worse than this one."

"But Anakin was always the one with the plan." she groaned, though she couldn't help but offer up a small smile of her own. Out of all the clones she had grown close to over the course of the war, there had always been a special relationship between her and Rex. He was a good friend, perhaps her closest one outside of Anakin. If there was anyone that could cheer her up in a time like this, it was him.

"I'm not him." she continued. "I can't come up with a plan like he can. He always seems to know what to do, and right now I just don't."

"I do."

Both Rex and Ahsoka looked at Wolffe, who had raised himself up to a sitting position, coughing from the effort as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.

"You don't see a way out of this, because you aren't willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen." he continued, his eyes seemingly staring at something light years away. "Good for you, General. They'll need people like you in the peace we're going to bring here today. But for now, we have to make the hard calls."

"Wolffe… don't."

Her pleas fell on deaf ears as he readied his blaster rifle and started to methodically place grenades all around him.

"I'm in no position to move with you. My left lung is collapsed, I'm losing too much blood, and my leg was twisted in the explosion. I'd only slow you down, and you've still got a lot of ground to cover. Let me stay here. I can hold them off for a good long time. And when I'm out of ammo…"

He jovially displayed a grenade, a savage grin on his face.

"The two of you can sneak on out of here, use that dust and smoke to your advantage while it's still high up in the air. Their sensors can't see any better than we can. They'll only see and hear me, especially if Rex isn't his usual clumsy self."

"I think you got me confused with yourself, Wolffe." Rex said with a chuckle, the kind one puts on to hide the sorrow they were feeling. "Must be getting loopy from that blood loss."

"Maybe, but I'm still a better shot than you." he grunted. "Now go, the both of you, before you lose your chance. May the Force be with you both."

She wanted to say something. Some validation that his sacrifice wouldn't be in vain or that the Republic would remember him. Instead, she just let Rex pull her away as she deactivated her lightsaber and they fled into the obscuring dust. She was numb, even more so than when Click had sacrificed his entire force for them.

Yet another person was sacrificing themselves for her. What had she done to deserve all of this? Was her life and her fate so important that it made up for the deaths that were, are, and would be sacrificed for her?

Then she reminded herself that there was no death. There was only the Force. A small victory in the face of so much darkness, but it was enough. When she had been knighted, Ahsoka hadn't felt all that different than she was when she was a Padawan. But over the course of this mission, she realized that she had changed. The weight she carried was greater now, and while she felt it was dragging her down to drown in the depths of her duty, there were moments such as right now that she was grateful that the weight kept her from being swept away in the hurricane that was her emotions.

Blaster fire from behind them was one of the few constants besides the darkness all around them. Wolffe hadn't been kidding about his accuracy. He was easily one of the best shots in the entire Grand Army of the Republic, and Ahsoka knew that the unfaltering pace at which he was firing meant he wasn't running out of targets to shoot at.

A sudden explosion and a feeling of heat at her back brought her out of that reverie. Wolffe had finally been overrun, but his last act had bought them even more valuable time. As Rex and Ahsoka crouched down inside of a freshly made crater to avoid the B-1 battle droids running past them towards Wolffe's position, she knew that he had made the greatest sacrifice one could possibly make. She and Rex shared one quick glance of sorrow at each other before moving on. What more could even be said in the face of what their friend had done for them? What words could be said that could even come close to describing what his last stand had meant? If there were words for it, Ahsoka did not know them.

The ray shields on the tower still hadn't been brought back up, and Ahsoka and Rex had a completely deserted path up to the top of the spire. The orbital strike had really scattered the droids, and Ahsoka was almost surprised at what a letdown it had been that there was hardly any fighting left to do. The Clone Wars, it seemed, would go out with a whimper instead of a bang. It made her friend's deaths all the more tragic.

There was one lone tactical droid at the top of the control tower, one last droid to be killed by one last blaster held by one last clone trooper in service of a war that had been started by one crazed man in service of ambitions that still made Ahsoka's skin crawl. Once Rex had finished putting the remainder of his clip into what remained of the droid's head, he got to work looking at the holoterminals around them.

"Here it is," he said. "The command to have all droid armies shut down. Took me a little bit, but I got a workaround. Dooku's security in the palace was surprisingly lax. He didn't seem to think anyone but him was going to be using his terminal. Looks like Sith arrogance saves our skin once again."

Ahsoka let out a little smile at that. Rex might have been a clone, but he'd spent enough time around Anakin and herself that a good bit of Jedi philosophy had rubbed off on him. It really was the weakness of the Sith and the Dark Side in general. Their arrogance blinded them to the power of ordinary people, people like Gregor, Wolffe and Click who would sacrifice themselves in a heartbeat to save those that they loved and cared for. They might have been born in a vat for a singular purpose of waging war, but the Jedi had seen to it that they were looked at as human beings. Creatures capable of thought, reason, and most importantly love. As Ahsoka looked down at the flashing red square on the screen in front of her that said DEACTIVATION [TOTAL], she realized that it really was love that had beaten the Sith in the end. Love, and the deaths of good men.

"Rex." Ahsoka said, a strange conviction in her voice. "You should do it."

"Pardon me, General?" Rex asked, looking at her in bewilderment. He didn't understand what she was saying.

"You should be the one to press that button and end the war." Ahsoka said.

"But this was your mission, your plan!" Rex protested. "The Jedi have lost more than anyone in this war, it should be a Jedi who ends it!"

She just shook her head and cupped his face in her hands.

"Look at me, Rex." she said.

He did. And when Rex did so, he saw that she really did care about him. About all clones. They weren't just soldiers to her, they were brothers in arms. People deserving of everything that life had to offer. Deserving of a chance to try their hand at peace when this was all over.

"Clones were created to end this war, but you've never really been seen as people by the Republic." Ahsoka said sorrowfully. "When you press that button, the entire galaxy will know it was a clone that did it. Not because he was ordered to, not because it was something he'd been told was his goal in life ever since his growth vat whispered it in his ear, but because he loves them. Each and every person in the Republic, even if they look at you no differently than they do a droid. This was your war, Rex. Much more than it ever was mine. You should be the one to end it, and on your own terms."

Then she saw something that she never thought she would see. There were tears welling up in his eyes.

"I… can you give me a moment?" he asked her, his voice so thick it was barely recognizable.

She nodded, and turned her back from her friend, getting back into the elevator and giving him some much needed time alone.

Even as she did so, she heard his sobs through the thick durasteel of the doors. She heard his cries for his brothers that had died, and she even heard him mention the names of some of the non-droids he had been compelled to fight. He wept for them all, and he even wept in relief that it was all over.

To her surprise, she found herself crying too. It was not a grief that was tinged with despair or anger, but a hallowed grief. She wept from relief, joy, shame, and above all sadness that the galaxy had spilled so much blood to learn a lesson they should have known all along: there was no Republic, there was no Confederacy of Independent Systems. There was only the Force, and it moved through them all.

"DEACTIVATION PROTOCOLS INITIATED." a cold electronic voice said. "ALL DROID ARMIES SHUTTING DOWN."

As she made her way back into the control room, she could see through the windows that the dust had cleared enough to give her a good view of the battlefield outside. Droid after droid was locking itself in place, motionless and uncaring to the stimuli around it.

"You did it." Ahsoka said, unable to keep the awe from her voice. "The Clone Wars are officially over."

"That they are." Rex said, moving to stand next to her as he gazed with similar disbelief out the window.

"Ahsoka?"

As she turned towards him, she couldn't recall more than a handful of times that Rex hadn't addressed her by her rank. Though she supposed that since the war was over, there wasn't much need for it.

"I think it's time we went home."

* * *

Location: Serenno - stationary orbit at the Hyperspace Entry Point

Ahsoka once again felt that uneasy balance between feeling appreciation and apprehension for Separatist architecture. Several transport shuttles near the spire had been protected by the ray shielding and the hardest part of leaving the planet had been choosing which one to take.

She still felt slightly numb as they were preparing to leave the planet. She had come with so many, and she was leaving with only one. It had been worth it, and each one of them had gladly laid down their lives for her and the Republic, but she still felt hollow.

Immediately upon getting clear of the debris field that was the Serenno Defense Fleet, Ahsoka had broadcast a message detailing the deactivation of the Separatist Droid Army. From Mygeeto to Kashyyyk, reports were coming in of victory after victory for the Grand Army of the Republic. After three long years, the Clone Wars were over. Celebrations were taking place all over the galaxy as the Republic rejoiced at the prospect of peace once again.

That didn't bring back the dead though, and Ahsoka worried that guilt would never leave her.

"Ahsoka, there is an incoming message." Rex said in a puzzled tone. Ahsoka thought it was weird too. Nobody knew they were on a Separatist transport shuttle. It should have been impossible for them to receive anything other than a message sent across all frequencies. But this was directed specifically at them.

"Put it through Cap- I mean Rex." she said, hastily correcting herself.

The man that materialized on the hologram looked similar to Rex, but there were startling differences. His hair was longer, and the right half of his face was painted black. A red bandanna sporting a white skill was covering his forehead, and Ahsoka could spot that crooked grin of his from a mile away.

"Hunter!" she exclaimed joyfully. "You made it! You're alive!"

"It'll take more than a flaming spaceship falling from the sky to kill me." Hunter replied. "You can't get rid of me that easily, General."

"And the rest of the Bad Batch?" Rex asked from behind her, equally happy to see his brothers alive.

"Ah please!" Wrecker said, shoving Hunter aside and standing entirely too close to the hololens as he spoke. "If it couldn't kill a wimp like Hunter, did you really think I'd die?"

Ahsoka and Rex both laughed at that. She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually, truly laughed. It felt good, she hoped she could do it more in the future.

"I'm glad you called, Hunter." she said. "Where are you located? We'll pick you up and we'll all return to Coruscant together."

The moment she saw him shift awkwardly she knew that wasn't going to be the case.

"Yeah, about that." Hunter replied. "Sorry, General. Me and the Batch already took a shuttle and headed out. We're well on our way to the Outer Rim as we're speaking."

"Why, Hunter?" Rex asked, equal parts confused and hurt. "The war is over, brother. You can come home now."

"Rex…" Hunter began hesitantly. "You know it's not that simple. You and the other normal clones might have a shot at a normal life, as far fetched as that is. Us.. well, we're different. We're a bad batch of clones to our core. There was barely a place for us in war, and I don't think we'd do too well in peace. We'll be making our way to the Outer Rim. There will be plenty for us to do out there, and dozens of threats will be gone before you even know they existed."

"Come on, don't say that Hunter." Rex pleaded. "You don't know that it'll be bad."

"You're all I got left!" he continued, an accusing tone creeping into his voice. "I lost so many close friends and brothers in this war. Don't tell me I have to lose more!"

"You already have a new family, Rex." Hunter said, without a hint of anger in his voice at Rex's accusations. "And they'll need you more than we do. If that ever changes, we'll know where to find you."

Even when it was over, it seemed that the Clone Wars weren't done taking. Ahsoka didn't know the members of Clone Force 99 all that well, but she knew loss all too well, and it was etched over Rex's face. What was this new family? Most of his brothers were dead.

Then it hit her. She was his new family. She was who he had left. The lost and the broken, they all had each other. And together, they might be able to make a new life for themselves.

Ahsoka chuckled. She couldn't help herself. She sounded like a broken holorecording, but it seemed like once again it was going to be love that defeated the machinations of the Sith and their wars. She could see it in her mind. Rex would go on to help others like him who struggled with being weapons of war that no longer had a reason to fight. She would train Jedi to be keepers of the peace. The two of them, and countless others who felt the way they did, would take up the torch and ensure that the galaxy did not fall into darkness once again.

"I understand, Hunter." she said, bowing slightly to the clo- the man in the hologram. "I wish you nothing but the best. May the Force be with you."

"And with you, Ahsoka Tano." Hunter said with one last smile as his image faded away and he was gone.

Ahsoka didn't say anything to Rex, and it seemed like he was in no hurry to say anything to her. As she plugged in the coordinates Captain Antilles sent them for the _Tantive IV_, she turned and gave Rex a hug. It said all that she wanted to and more. He wasn't alone, and neither was she. They had each other. They had all of those who felt like there wasn't much to live for anymore.

As the ship entered hyperspace, she sat back and let herself truly relax for the first time in what felt like millennia. They had survived the war, and she knew that they could survive the peace.

* * *

A.N. Hello everyone and thank you for being patient with me as it's been ages since I last updated Star Wars: Heralds of the Force. Rest assured that it's far from over, and I have a lot of fun ideas for where to take this in the future. A massive thank you goes out to the user InsertCleverNicknameHere for posting a lovely review and giving me the enthusiasm I needed to get my rear in gear!

I hope that I can write more frequently in the future, and I look forward to the feedback you guys give me on future chapters. May the Force be with you all!

\- Klick


	11. Chapter 10: Cat and Mouse

**Chapter 10: Cat and Mouse**

Location: 500 Republica, Padme's Apartment

There were many times in Padme Amidala's life where she felt like she was about to die.

From the moment the Trade Federation enacted their blockade on Naboo, hardly a year went by where there had not been a threat, be it mild or serious, that had not popped up in some form or another.

As she stared down the barrel of a blaster pistol held by the Terrelian Jango Jumper assassin, she felt grateful that the constant threats on her life hadn't made her any less nervous. Padme still felt that rush of adrenaline course through her as she was moments away from death. Though to be fair, the panic she had once felt in such situations had vanished long before now. She hadn't felt true fear at these attempts since she'd professed her love for Anakin as they made their way into that horrid arena on Geonosis.

But Anakin wasn't here. She was going to have to get out of this situation all on her own.

"Why does Mas Amedda want to kill me?" she asked, feigning innocence as she stood up from her seat. She was grateful for her pregnancy, it allowed her to wear simple, obscuring clothing like the cloak she wore at the moment, it hid her hands from view as she leaned over her holoterminal. It was going to be essential for her plan to work.

"You know what you did, Senator." the Jumper sneered. He was a fearsome sight. A DL-18 blaster pistol was aimed right at her, and two twin bandoliers stocked with thermal detonators were strapped to his chest.

"You started looking where you weren't supposed to." he continued. "You learned things that were better left forgotten. Now powerful people want you dead. I aim to deliver."

"You don't honestly think you'll get away with this!" Padme exclaimed, her fingers flying at tremendous speeds underneath her cloak, hoping desperately that the assassin was focused on her face.

_Accessing 500 Republica Power Grid_

"You're not the first person Mas Amedda wanted killed, and you won't be the last."

_Maintenance Reroute Authorized_

"There's one thing your employer forgot to tell you when he sent you here."

_Accessing Illumination. Subcategory: Total_

"Oh really? What did he forget to tell me?"

_Terminate Power? y/n_

"I've faced worse than you." Padme grinned, and with one last hidden keystroke, every single light source in the entire building went dark.

Blaster fire erupted right where her head had been a moment before, but Padme wasn't there. The assassin uttered a scream of terrifying rage as he used his powerful legs to kick over the table where she had stood seconds ago.

Padme rushed into the bedroom, appearing no more than a blur in the dim lighting., She knew the Jango Jumper had eyesight that was no better than a human's. He was at a disadvantage here, in such an unfamiliar environment. If she had to hazard a guess as to what his next move was, it would be to wait for her to make a mistake. He'd wait near the door, and wait to flush her out as she became desperate to escape and the panic set in.

Poor fool, he had no clue who he was messing with.

Quiet as a Scyllian wraithbat, Padme snuck through her bedroom to a utility closet on the far side of her lounge/dining room. It was a small thing, purposely built to be out of the way and not a nuisance to the rest of the room. It was something that Padme had insisted on having ever since her husband had given her a wedding gift.

C-3P0 was more than just a gift to her. He had become a good friend, and Padme had wanted to give him his own charging station where he could power down and have a few scant moments of privacy when the Senator didn't need him. It had been fortuitous that she'd built this closet for him. If she hadn't, he likely would have been socializing with her or performing routine duties around her apartment and would surely have been destroyed. He might still be, but Padme had the element of surprise now, and she had the beginnings of a plan for how to get out of this.

"Oh my goodness, Mistress Padme!" 3P0 exclaimed, his eyes illuminating as she flicked his power switch on. "The lights are all dark! What is going o-"

Padme put a hand over his mouth and motioned for him to be silent. Already she could hear her would-be killer moving further in, no doubt drawn by the droid's noises.

"3P0, you have to listen to me." Padme hissed. "There is an assassin after me, and I'm going to need your help to escape."

Mercifully, the droid said nothing. He just nodded and looked at her expectantly.

"Good." she said with a small smile. "Here is what we're going to do."

* * *

The Jango Jumper was stressed, anxious even. Mas Amedda, or whomever it was that was controlling that spineless politician, had been using his services for years and in all that time, the Jango Jumper could only think of a few occasions where his target had given him any noticeable trouble.

There had been a Wookiee outcast who knew certain things that were better left unknown. That had taken him to the forest floor, where beasts no sane creature dared look upon waited with drooling maws.

Or the time he had hunted down a Jedi who was embedded in some sort of crazy cult who was about to expose some pretty powerful officials in the Republic. He still had the scar from where he'd been struck by a lightsaber. It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before, but he'd survived it all the same. No matter how quick they might have been, there wasn't a soul alive that could escape his grasp.

This human, however, was giving him more trouble than he'd had in a long time. There was something in her eyes that troubled him. He saw many emotions in her. Anger, frustration, even a small bit of arrogance. But he never saw fear. That was worrisome. Every single one of his marks had felt fear, even if in the very end. This one was seemingly immune. Fear made his targets predictable. It allowed him to know their moves before even they did. If this Padme Amidala was resisting that fear…

The assassin shook his head, bringing himself back to the moment. It wouldn't do to think of things that might not be. Fear was infectious, and the Jango Jumper knew he wasn't immune. One false step, one moment of weakness would be all it took and he'd breathe his last breath before his target did.

A sudden burst of movement caught his attention. He dropped to one knee and leveled his blaster at its origin. Instead of Senator Amidala, a shiny golden arm waved wildly in the beam of light the Jango Jumper shined in his direction.

"Oh goodness gracious." it wailed, shuffling away from him at a pathetically slow rate. "Don't hurt me! I'm programmed for etiquette, not combat!"

A protocol droid, and one with a coward's personality core. It's why the assassin never used them himself. Too many variables that were out of his control. At least this one wasn't a threat.

"I won't kill you, droid." the assassin said with a sneer lowering his pistol as he slowly advanced towards a droid like a hunter does to a skittish beast. "But only if you tell me where your master is."

"Good sir, I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations!" it replied, more indignantly than before. That didn't mean it stopped its slow shuffle towards the opposite wall however. Its master might not have felt fear, but this droid clearly did. It wasn't even moving towards the exit. The exact opposite in fact.

"I am more than just some droid that you can order about. Mistress Padme would be most cross if I did that." he continued, stopping at a wall near the balcony to the apartment and giving the Jango Jumper what he could only assume was the rudest gesture the protocol droid's programming would allow.

"And where is your 'Mistress Padme right now?"

"She did not tell me where she was going." the droid replied, stepping slightly to the right in an attempt to avoid the trailing barrel of the assassin's blaster. "She told me that I had other things to do."

"Going?" asked the Jango Jumper, a cold pit forming in his stomach. "What orders are you talking about?"

"Pulling the fire alarm, of course."

He'd been so stupid. The droid had caught him off guard and what he'd assumed had been fear had really been a concealed effort to reach the emergency panel on the wall. One quick button press later and the entire apartment, if not the entire complex, emitted a deafening screech.

A screech that caused the assassin to fall to his knees. Once again, he cursed himself for his foolishness. The noise and accompanying flashing lights that swirled above his head were a great distraction. A distraction that, if he were being hunted, he would use to escape.

Though the noise was loud, it wasn't loud enough to cover the unmistakable hiss of a door opening. He whirled around, firing blindly in a vain hope to hit something. He didn't hit anything, but he saw something clear as if he were next to it.

A small bit of a cloak, grey and commonly made. Not something that would be amiss on the streets of Coruscant.

That still wouldn't do her any good. The assassin let out a small smile. Perhaps she was getting a tiny bit scared after all. A wardrobe change wouldn't do her any good. He knew its color, he could guess its shape. It had cost her valuable time, and it wasn't going to help her elude him. He was a Jango Jumper. Three strides and he would be out the door. Three more and he'd be right on top of her. No cloak would prevent that.

Not unless she was planning to mingle with other pe-

The fire alarm! That was her big plan. Cause everyone to exit their residencies and mingle in the hallway. One cloak among dozens wouldn't stand out then.

Opening the door, he saw that it was exactly how he imagined. Dozens upon dozens of species of every size and shape were curiously looking around and wondering whether this was some sort of drill or not. One short beep later, and fire suppressant liquid fell from the sprinklers in the ceiling, adding yet more chaos and confusion.

No matter. He'd never lost his quarry before tonight, and he wasn't going to start now.

"Clever of you, very clever." he murmured, holstering his blaster and scanning the crowd for her face.

"But it won't save you in the end."

* * *

Location: 500 Republica, Lobby of the 781st Floor

If she survived this, Padme made a promise to herself that Threepio was going to get as many hot oil baths as he wanted.

The droid had done his job bravely, distracting the assassin with conversation before risking himself to walk away from the door and trigger the fire alarm. It had given her time to put on her cloak and flee her apartment.

People in the hallway had given her a tremendous cover, and she'd been able to snag a deathstick lighter from a 'companion' a Senator on her floor was entertaining. Holding it up to one of the sensors, Padme had triggered the fire suppression systems and made sure that she had a nice cover for when she moved to the turbolift.

Once inside, she slammed the button for the parking garage where her personal speeder was kept and leaned back against the wall, cradling the child she carried. She had been shot at, poisoned, and the target of multiple assassinations before, but none of those had occurred while she was heavily pregnant with a baby. She couldn't keep running, so she would have to escape quickly, and while she still had her strength. Luckily Anakin had insisted on overseeing modifications to her speeder himself. It had been a beautiful anniversary gift and she was grateful he had hemmed and hawed about making sure it was absolutely perfect.

And perfect it was. Not only as a symbol of their love, but a truly excellent way to outrun someone trying to kill her.

A task that would be easier said than done. As she breathed a sigh of relief, she saw a faint glimmer of light right off the side of the building. Whatever it was, it seemed to be catching the reflection of the almost uncountable amount of lights on the Coruscant skyline. With a cold pit forming in her stomach, she realized that could only be from broken glass falling out of a window that had just been shattered. Somehow, her killer had seen her get into the turbolift and was coming for her the fastest way they knew how.

Jango Jumpers were famed far and wide for not only their ability to traverse incredible distances, but also for the speed with which they could do so. This one was clearly one of the more gifted seeing how it was able to land on the turbolift after jumping only twice off the side of the building as it fell.

Padme was no coward, and drew her pistol from her holster with practiced ease. The assassin's reflexes were too swift for her however, and was able to dodge the bolts as they came. She ran out of charges on the pistol soon, as she hadn't really been given the chance to bring spare amounts of ammunition. Still she had one last trick up her sleeve.

The assassin assumed she was completely out of ammo and whipped out their own pistol, taking their time to line up a shot. At the last moment, Padme raised her blaster and used her very last shot to knock the pistol right out of their hands where it plummeted hundreds of stories to rest on the floor of Coruscant's underbelly.

She couldn't help but grin at him as she tossed the discarded weapon to the ground. They were at an impasse and time was on her side as they neared her floor.

The Jango Jumper sported a grin of their own, and started smashing their fist repeatedly against the glass on the turbolift. Cracks started appearing where their fist struck, and the small blaster hole slowly started to widen.

_Approaching: Senatorial Garage_

Padme couldn't quite figure out what they were trying to do until she saw the bandolier of thermal detonators strapped around her would-be killer's chest. It was all too clear then. They were trying to widen the hole that Padme had created so they could stick the detonator through and turn Padme into very expensive ash. Not today though, not if she could help it.

_Now Arriving At: Senatorial Garage_

The turbolift that seemed to be moving so quickly before seemed to slow down to a crawl at that moment. All she could do is wait. Wait, and see the crack almost get to the breaking point.

_Arrived At: Senatorial Ga-_

Padme didn't even wait for the computer to finish its announcement. She was off the turbolift and hurriedly pressed the 'close' button before diving away as far as she could. A thunderous explosion that happened not even a second later told her just how close she had been to incineration.

She made her way over to her speeder before collapsing to the ground in pain. All of a sudden, she was feeling the most horrible of cramps.

"No…" she muttered to herself. "Not here, not now."

But it was no good. Millennia of biology cared little for her current plight. It seemed the baby was coming sooner rather than later. Another round of contractions forced her to her knees once again before making her roll over on her back, staring up in anguish.

As she lay there, whimpering in pain and unsure of what to do, she saw something that she couldn't help but smile at. It seemed The Force had a plan for her after all, one that included her laying on her back in pain.

For the first time since this all began, Padme began to see a light at the end of this horrible evening.

* * *

Location: 500 Republica: Senatorial Garage

The Jango Jumper's thermal detonator hadn't killed his target, but he was unconcerned. It seemed as though despite all her efforts, the Senator from Naboo had fallen into one of his backup plans.

The turbolift was in too poor of condition to use, but there were other entrances to the parking garage. Though impossible for most other species in the galaxy to enter for his current position, all it took was a few more leaps and he found himself on the runway leading out of the garage and into the Coruscant traffic.

"There is nowhere else to run." he called out, sauntering into the garage with practiced ease. "I have destroyed your only other exit. Come now, you have done well for yourself. I have hunted Jedi, Wookiees, and other beings I dare not think about, but you have been my most difficult catch. Die well, knowing you almost got away."

"Not almost!" came a defiant call to his right, and right on cue, the headlights on Amidala's speeder flared and the assassin had to do everything in his power not to smirk. It seemed as though she was feeling more fear than he thought, and he was glad to see that his mantra of fear making people predictable still rang true.

The speeder careened past him and he happened to catch a small glimpse of her grey cloak before it sped right past him, turned left sharply and made for the exit.

With an almost lazy motion, he produced a remote from his pouch and pressed the button. It triggered a bomb on board the speeder and sent fragments of the craft careening in all directions. He even saw the head of a maintenance droid that must have been on board the craft when she took off flying past him. It had been a plan he'd thought of just before entering the apartment, and he'd only done it as a precaution, never thinking it would get that far. He was glad he'd been so thorough. That had been a particularly fine bit of work on his part. The bomb was thin, and cleverly placed underneath her speeder far away from any important wires or machinery so that the maintenance droids would never think to look there.

In fact, the only way it could have been spotted was if someone was laying flat on their back right next to it.

Not that it mattered now. Padme Amidala was dead and there was a bounty to collect on her. The assassin thought he'd earned a nice little vacation to Nar Shadda, or maybe some other Hutt controlled territory after this. A fun place where he could spend his ill-earned credits and forget all about the trouble she had caused.

He was just glad it all was over.

* * *

Location: Coruscant: _Arjun's Ne'tra Gal_

The assassin's favorite bar in this part of Coruscant was _Arjun's Ne'tra Gal_. Not only because it served surprisingly cheap amounts of its titular beverage, but also because its Nemoidian owner never asked questions and was always happy to let the Jango Jumper use the holoterminal to make whatever calls he needed to. Completely untraceable, without any direct link to him, and a very public place to make sure one of his fellow colleagues couldn't kill him discreetly for his credits.

With a curt nod to the Nemoidian who didn't even bother giving him a look, the Jango Jumper went back to a private booth and punched in the numbers he called every time he went to Coruscant.

Mas Amedda's sniveling face greeted him and wore the customary expression of disgust and worry that all politicians had when they had just gotten done doing something unpleasant.

"Well? Is it done?" he snapped, not even bothering with the usual formalities.

"Padme Amidala is dead." the assassin replied, impatiently cleaning underneath his nails with a vibroblade.

There wasn't even a sigh of relief, the Acting Chancellor just carried right on with the accusations he was clearly waiting to unleash.

"Do you have any idea how much damage you have caused? The attention you've brought upon me?" the Chargarin thundered. "Why did you have to kill her so publicly?"

"Look, you told me to get it done, no matter the cost." he snapped back. He didn't much care for the Acting Chancellor's tone, and he was growing uneasy about the fact that he hadn't been paid yet. Getting a lecture from someone was much easier when they paid you.

"Get what done? Blow up half of 500 Republica and make a fool of yourself?" Amedda goaded. It was too much. So the Acting Chancellor wanted to get a rise out of him? Fine by him. The pathetic excuse of a man deserved it.

"You told me to kill Padme Amidala, whatever it took!" he screamed. "You didn't mention how hard it was going to be! She almost got away and I did what I had to to kill her!"

"Didn't find her body though, did you?"

He started to feel that small seed of fear starting to sprout again.

"What?"

"I think that he's said more than enough, don't you, Commander Fox?"

The voice on the other end started to chuckle slightly, as the indignant face of Mas Amedda slowly morphed into that of one Senator Bail Organa. It was clear that the assassin droid had failed spectacularly. Besides a few minor scrapes, the senator from Alderaan seemed no worse for his encounter with the Jango Jumper's counterpart.

This was very bad indeed.

"Quite right you are, sir." came a clone clipped voice as strong pair of magnacuffs were slapped around the assassin's wrists and feet as a standard issue clone trooper blaster rifle aimed at his face.

"I want to make a deal." he spat, looking up at the smirking face of Senator Organa.

"That can be arranged." came the Senator's reply. "But you had better make it worth our while."

"Can I ever." the Jango Jumper chuckled.

"Let me tell you about the _other_ jobs Mas Amedda has sent me on."

* * *

Location: 500 Republica: Padme Amidala's Apartment

Bail Organa turned off the holo-pad and made his way back over to Padme who was sitting on her couch with a thick blanket wrapped all around her and a warm cup of broth in her hands.

Despite all she had been through tonight, Bail could still see the fire in her eyes, the resilience that made her such a difficult target to kill. He was glad he called her friend, because he had a feeling he didn't want to be her enemy.

Still, she grimaced slightly every few minutes as she sat there, listening in to what Bail and Commander Fox were chatting about. Even now, the Jango Jumper was singing like a shyyyo bird who took to the air for the first time. In addition to what they found aboard the wreckage of the _Invisible Hand_, there was more than enough here to at least get a warrant for Sheev Palpatine's office and send his associates away for a long time. And that was just the start, who knew what else they would uncover once they had finally found the truth?

"Thank you, Bail, for everything you've done tonight." Padme said, a slight strain in her voice.

"I'm the one who should be thanking you." he responded with a smile. "It's not every night a Senator saves her friend from almost certain death, avoids one the deadliest assassins on Coruscant, and reveals the extent of the Republic's corruption."

She couldn't help but smile at that, but Bail saw that once again she winced and held her stomach.

"Is there something wrong with the baby?" Bail asked, suddenly chiding himself for not being more worried about his friend. She had asked to go home without even getting looked at by a medical droid. He knew that she was stubborn, perhaps she was hiding some sort of injury that she thought she could walk it off. If something had happened…

"I'm fine, Bail." she said, holding her stomach. "Just a little stressed from the night is all."

He might have believed her too, if not for C-3PO's entrance.

"I am quite unable to find the medication you were looking for, Mistress Padme." 3PO said, shuffling into the living room. "If you would only let a medical droid look at you, I am quite sure that they would be able to- oh my goodness, Senator Organa! I did not realize we had company so late. May I prepare you something to eat or drink?"

He waved off the droid, not even bothering to answer his questions. Bail knew it was rude, but he had much more pressing things on his mind than offending a protocol droid.

"Able to what, Padme?" he asked, fearing he already knew the answer. "What is it that you are trying to get them to do?"

She knew the game was up, Bail could tell from her body language.

"The stress from the night." she said weakly. "The baby couldn't take any more of it… Anakin isn't here and I just thought that if I…"

She stopped as she winced at what must have been a particularly bad contraction.

"How far apart?" he asked her.

"I don't know. A few minutes at most." she said.

"Padme," Bail said as he squatted in front of her and held her face with his hand to let her know he would be here for her. "This baby is coming. The medical droids can delay it for a little while, but they can only do so much. One way or another, you're going to be a mother soon."

"Anakin isn't here." she moaned. "He needs to be here."

"We will try to reach him Padme, I promise." Bail reassured her as he helped her to her feet and motioned for 3PO to summon the medical droid.

Padme was barely paying attention to any of it. She was lost inside her own little world as she worried about her husband and her child.

"Annie... " she said in a worried whisper. "Where are you?


	12. Chapter 11: A Good Knight's Rest

**Chapter 11: A Good Knight's Rest**

_You are alone. _

_You are powerless. You were there, you could have saved all of those people, but you didn't. When the fate of the galaxy rested upon your lightsaber, you flinched. You stared into the darkness and flinched at what you saw. _

_All of that death in the Force. All of that pain. Nobody would have blamed a lesser Jedi for trying to cut themselves off from it. But you never claimed to be a lesser Jedi, did you? You claimed to be the very best of them all. My how the mighty have fallen. _

_Only… you didn't cut yourself clean off, did you? Some small part of your arrogance mixed with your fear made you take one last peek. You thought you might see your friends in the Force one last time. You fool, all you saw was me. _

_You can't redeem yourself from this. You are mine now. This latest adventure will end like all of the others. Remember Parmarthe? Akiva? Nar Shaddaa? Failures, all of them. You haven't had the power since Coruscant. Since _**he** _took it from you and I was birthed from his actions. Your power is gone, your strength is gone, soon your name will be gone. I will be all that remains. Accept me, it is your destiny. _

_What's this? Still trying, I see. No matter, I am patient. I am eternal. You will embrace me one day. It is the will of the Force. Though it's not like you can still feel that anymore._

_Can you, 'Master' Windu?_

* * *

Location: Vyndal Station - Hangar Bay 2

The fall of the Jedi was seen by many people as the end of the Republic. The defenders that had stood athwart any and almost every single evil to befall their civilization gave people confidence that as long as the Jedi survived, so would the Republic.

When the clones started killing Jedi and there was a mass exodus from the Jedi Temple in the next few hours, many despaired and thought that it was the end of days. As fell the Jedi, so too would the Republic inevitably fall.

Not all of the Republic's citizens were so sad to see it fall though. In the few weeks since Chancellor Palpatine had enacted Order 66, the Hutts had gleefully gobbled up large swathes of galactic space and forbade anyone that was not one of their gangers from entering.

Others that did not have the power of the Hutts merely settled for committing acts that would have surely brought the attention and intervention of the Jedi before. Syndicates like the Black Sun for instance, took over hundreds of space stations like Vyndal Station and used the obsolete locations to store their precious and illegal cargo.

Cargo that in this particular case, was children. Living children, and very valuable ones at that. Using information that was so classified that the commander of the station had no clue to its original owner, Black Sun ships had been skirting as far as the Mid Rim to snatch up Force-sensitive children and bringing them back for processing and storage before their inevitable fate.

The commander shuddered. He didn't know where those black ships that occasionally came to the base were originally from, and he didn't want to. The less he knew, the better. Things were crazier now that the Jedi were gone, and all sorts of strange people and groups that had once sulked in the shadows now brought that darkness into the open. He wasn't getting paid to think about nonsense like that.

In fact, he was paid very handsomely to think about such things as station security. His men had started taking more and more risks recently. Originally, they'd followed their instructions to the letter and only took small children, scarcely more than babies, from their homes to await transport to Vyndal Station. That had gone well, but there were troubling rumors that… something was pursuing them. Several of his men had reported a shadow stalking them. Some had been killed, and they'd all been scared.

So the commander had authorized something far more risky, but much more lucrative. Though small in the grand scheme of things, they had been a sizable amount of Jedi students that had survived the massacre while their master perished. The fools had probably sacrificed themselves to save their pupils. If only they knew what that sacrifice had bought for those that lived.

It hadn't been easy. The Black Suns weren't the only ones looking for Jedi students, and some of the small outfits hadn't been so easy to bribe. At least one had openly tried to fight them, and this last batch of Jedi that had been wrangled onto Nar Shaddaa had been an odd job from the start. They had predicted violence, but nothing on the scale of what happened there. The sheer amount of destruction was high, even for a war between rival gangs on a lawless planet in the outer rim.

That's why he was overseeing this new batch personally. They looked so frightened and scared as they were marched off the transport, but that mattered little to him. To the commander, they just looked like a hefty profit.

As his men led the children away, the commander stayed a little longer to look over the lightsabers his men had taken from some of the children when they were abducted. Pretty little things, and they'd fetch a generous amount of credits when he could unload them.

Those thoughts were cut short by a loud *tsshhew*, the smell of burning air, and a purple glow that filled the small cargo room.

"Where are the Padawans?" came a voice from behind him. It seems that a Jedi had stowed aboard their ship leaving Nar Shaddaa. The commander cursed his stupidity. He'd bothered to check the men as they'd left the ship, but he'd forgotten to do a sweep of the ship.

"Where are the Padawans?" it said once again, much deadlier than before.

"Don't know what those are." the commander snapped, both scared and angry.

"The Jedi. Where are you taking them?"

"Prisoner cells. We turned the lower living quarters into prison cells!" the Falleen wailed. The lightsaber was closer to his throat now, and he was starting to worry that this might not be a normal Jedi.

"Thank you." the voice said, before there was a flash of pain in the back of his head and his world went black.

* * *

_That was foolish. You should have killed him. Now he'll wake up and alert everyone that you're here. A race against time that could have been avoided, if only you'd get rid of that pesky morality. You can't even use the Force anymore, so you'll need to start getting rid of that little 'code' if you want to make it out of this alive. That droid hand of yours you got so recently after I arrived seems to be breaking down. I wouldn't trust it if I were you. _

_Ah, trying to pull up schematics? It would have been so much easier to just mind trick that last guy to do it, wouldn't you agree? You're powerless, Windu. You're a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you are a shell of the man you once were. _

_Those kids are gonna die. You can't save them like this. Only way you're all getting out of this is to let yourself go. Just let me take over, and I'll take care of the rest. Some of them might even live this way. _

_**Be Silent**_

…

**…**

_AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You spoke to me. You acknowledged my presence. You fool, I'm a part of you. I can't be silent any more than you can use the force. But now you spoke to me. I have more power now. You can never shut me up, Windu. I'll be here forever. _

_You're pathetic. Your list of failures cannot, and will not, ever be forgiven. You don't deserve to keep rescuing these younglings. Don't keep trying. Don't keep going on. Just let me take over. _

**…**

_Ignoring me now, are you? How cute. It's pointless, you know. I'll get your attention again eventually, because now I know I can. _

_Days, Months, Years, it doesn't matter to me. You spoke to me once, and you'll speak to me again. But your will can't hold out forever, and you'll eventually surrender to me. _

_I have a feeling we'll be getting to know each other very well quite soon. _

* * *

Location: Vyndal Station - Lower Levels

Cal Kestis was shoved roughly into the impromptu holding cells on the lower levels of the station, and soon found himself falling face first into a puddle of filth on the floor.

His master was dead, pushing him through the door of the escape pod as he held off the clones until his death. Cal had crashed onto the surface of Bracca where he'd been taken in by a scrapper guild that had eagerly sold him off to the Black Suns when they'd come snooping around for possible Jedi. He'd been so stupid. His master had told him not to trust anyone, but the clones had not bothered to search for him on the surface, and he'd naively assumed that nobody else would be looking for him.

Lying on the dirty floor of the former miners' living quarters, he should have known that life wasn't ever going to be easy from here on out.

"Are you a Padawan too?" a voice called out. Cal's eyes were beginning to adjust to the dim conditions of the room, and saw that several gaunt looking faces were beginning to peer out at him from their bunks as they cautiously made their way over to the newcomer.

"Yeah… I am." Cal said in a defeated tone. He might have still technically been a Jedi Padawan, but he didn't feel like one any longer. He'd failed his master, and had lost his lightsaber. Not exactly Padawan material. In fact, his self-pity was so great it kept him from worrying too much over what his future held after this. "I'm Cal Kestis"

"Who was your master?"

"Where did you come from?"

"How did you escape your clones?"

"Why is your hair red?"

"Alright, alright." said a slender, dark haired girl that looked to be a few years older than Cal. She slid out of her bunk and looked at him with bright eyes that had none of the gloom that the rest of her pallid looking face had. "The newbie has had quite the journey. Give him time to rest, and then you can all pester him to your heart's content."

The assembled kids that had swarmed around Cal grumbled slightly, but moved off to sit in other places in the dimly lit room. The dark haired girl waved to Cal and motioned for him to sit next to her and another boy who wore dirty padawan robes with dark brown hair.

"Sorry about them." she said with a shrug. "You're the first new person they've seen in a long time. We're all curious about the outside world."

"It's not a problem." Cal said self consciously, fiddling with a stray thread on the sleeve of his robe so that he didn't break down into tears.

"Hey… it's alright." the girl said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's alright, you don't have to worry, you're among friends now. My name is Trilla Suduri, and that over there is Caleb Dume."

Caleb merely lifted a few fingers to say a mild hello, seemingly preferring to look at Cal with bemused interest.

"Look… it's going to be fine." Trilla said, seeing that introducing themselves hadn't exactly made their new friend look any happier. "We have to trust in the Force and we'll make it out of this alive."

"It's not that!" Cal said, a little more pitifully than he would have liked. "When our clones attacked, I failed my master. He died because I lost my lightsaber. If I could go back, I would… I would…"

It wasn't Trilla's hand on his shoulder now, but Caleb's.

"My master and I were trapped by our clones and it looked like there was no way out." he said. "She told me to go on ahead and she would be with me shortly. I ran and never looked back. I felt her pass into the Force, and every night since, I've been haunted by the fact that if I had stayed, she might still be alive. Her memory still haunts me, but I'm learning to forgive myself. Don't let it haunt you too, Cal."

"My master and I both survived the original attack." Trilla chimed in. "But we found another group of younglings, on their way to get their lightsabers from Ilum. We all hid in caves on a planet that I don't even remember, but some of the younglings got sick. I begged my master to go into town to get medicine for them, because I could guard the caves until she was back. The Black Sun caught her, and tortured our location out of her before killing her outright. I was the only one they took alive. The others were too far gone to be of use to them. Just like Caleb, I feel that guilty every day. Cal… you have a chance at a better path. Learn from our mistakes, and use the Force to guide your actions, don't let your memories take its place."

"No, you don't understand, I can't-" Cal began before being interrupted by the sound of blaster fire coming from outside their doors followed by screaming and the unmistakable *thrum* of a lightsaber. The door hissed open and the room was bathed in the purple glow of a lightsaber whose wielder Cal didn't recognize.

"Master Windu!" gasped Caleb, who leapt to his feet and joined the gaggle of people surrounding their Jedi rescuer.

"Caleb!" Mace shouted, leaning down to embrace the Padawan. "I'm glad you made it. Let's get you all out of here."

"Out of here?" Cal asked hopefully. "You're going to rescue us?"

"Yes." Mace said, and Cal felt hope for the first time in far too long. He'd heard stories of the great Mace Windu, and if even half of them were true, he was going to save them all.

* * *

_How nice of all of those younglings to believe in you. Didn't have the heart to tell them the truth, did you? Starting to act more and more like me all the time. _

_Not going to answer me? Ah well, no matter. I can make conversation all by myself. Let's see where that takes us, shall we? _

_Oh dear, it seems that you've got your first problem on your hands. How are you going to get them back up to the top? Want to take the stairs? I think we both know that's not going to happen. Ah, and would you look at that! A thermal detonator explosion that collapsed the stairwell. Looks like it's back to the drawing board on how to get out. _

_The turbolifts? You're not serious. Look, Mace, trust me just this one. You're never going to be able to rescue fifteen or so younglings by cramming them into a small metal box. They'll be shot the moment they step off the lift. Seriously, are you feeling well? I'm asking as a friend, here. Maybe it really is a good idea if I take over for a while. _

_Oh, going to just climb an empty turbolift shaft. I'd say I'm proud, but you're still going to die doing this, so why don't I just hold off on my praise until you give me the controls here. _

_See? What did I tell you? Sure the first part was easy, but no sooner did you find a level to stop at, then those Black Suns opened other doors and started shooting into the shaft. Almost lost that little red-headed kid except that you grabbed him at the last minute. Next time you won't be lucky. Next time you'll lose the kid and-_

_Wait, wait, wait, are you serious?! Did you seriously just lose your lightsaber when a simple blaster bolt of all things knocked it out of your hand? I'm sorry, but this is just too funny. I'd be laughing, but I'm just too shocked to chuckle. Oh man, you really are losing it, aren't you? The old Windu would never have lost a lightsaber to a blaster bolt. _

_Shoot the old Windu would just extend his hand and summon his trusty lightsaber back to him. Why don't you do that? Ah, that's right. You can't. Tired of me saying that? Tired of failing? Just let me take over and it all ends. You've lost the Force and your lightsaber now, you have no chance. _

_**I find a way. I always do. **_

_I mean, you did, but that was before you lost the most important thing you had. What is it that Kenobi says? "This weapon is your life, blah blah blah". That was truly your life, Mace. You invented a new form of saber combat, and became Master of the Order because of your skill in battle. _

_**I became Master of the Order because of my character!**_

_Sure, buddy, sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Don't come crying to me when it all comes crashing down around your head. I'll be here for you anyway. _

_Perhaps this is what you needed, a little lesson in your fragility. Oh you'll be mine soon, Mace Windu, I can feel it. _

* * *

Location: Vyndal Station - Hangar Bay 13

Cal was breathing hard, but in good spirits. Master Windu had led them up an elevator shaft, saving his life along the way, and they were now just outside of the hangar bay doors leading into the rest of the station. A Zygerian cruiser was inside, fresh from delivering some of the people that were now a part of the group looking to escape this place.

Trilla assured everyone that she could pilot the thing, and Cal had picked up a few tips and tricks from his weeks working for the scrapper guild before he was taken. With Caleb and a few of the older Padawans using blasters they'd scavenged from fallen gangers, this was looking like something they could pull off.

Still, it wasn't all a pretty picture. Master Windu has lost his lightsaber, and while Caleb and the Padawans had made short work of the skeleton crew that was guarding the ship, Cal could sense a large force of gangers hot on their heels.

"To the ship!" called Master Windu. "Go, hurry!"

They scrambled forward up onto the cargo ramp, and Trilla scurried her way upstairs while Cal made sure the hyperdrive was in working condition. Everything was looking great. They might actually make it out of this.

Cal should have known that thinking such thoughts was only going to make problems appear in their path.

"The gate!" a Padawan wailed, running towards the ship as fast as they could. "I can't close the gate! The gears are jammed!"

Cal felt his stomach drop. They couldn't close the gate. They might escape, but gangers would be hot on their trail, pursuing in fighters that would take out their engines before they could jump to hyperspace. They only needed a few minutes too, just enough time for the gangers to figure out that the gate was jammed and find another way in. That was more than enough time for the Padawans to escape.

"I will hold them off."

Mace Windu seemed larger than life as he stood up and made for the exit to the ship.

"I'll hold them off and give you time to escape. It should be close, but you should make it."

Caleb seemed to get what Windu was implying, and simply nodded his head and tightened his grip on his blaster.

"No!" Cal said, rushing towards the Jedi master and grabbing his hand in an effort to hold him back. As he did so, a rush of emotions and memories flooded into Cal and threatened to overwhelm him. Grief, despair, anger, and above them all there seemed to be this intelligent dark cloud that hung over the Jedi Master's thoughts. Cal immediately backed away, cutting himself off from the Force as he did so in an effort to prevent further pain from entering his mind.

Mace knelt beside the young boy, cupping his face with his hand and raising his face up to meet the Jedi's.

"I know you just cut yourself off." Mace told him with a firm look. A look that quickly turned into one of joy and surprise.

"I _felt_ that…"

"Master?" Cal asked him.

"What is your name, Padawan?"

"Cal Kestis."

"Cal, I know you are worried. I know it seems like darkness will win and the world will grow dim. Trust me, good always wins in the end. Even a single spark of light is enough to brighten a room. And your spark will be much brighter than that. My part in the galaxy's journey is at an end. Yours is just beginning."

And with that, Mace Windu walked out of the cruiser with a surprising lightness to his step. He was right, Cal Kestis would go on to become a great Jedi Knight who would do many great and beautiful things. But no matter how high he rose, he would never forget what a true Jedi Knight looked like.

It looked like Mace Windu, unarmed and outgunned, going forth to meet his destiny with a smile on his face.

* * *

_How dare you not listen to me! Ignore me at your own peril! Listen, Mace, you are about to die. _

_The Black Sun is about to round that corner and take you out. They'll fill you with so many blaster bolts that they won't even be able to bury what's left of you. You won't even let that ship with the younglings escape. You have no plan, no lightsaber, and no Force. It's hopeless, and if you'll only let me take control I can-_

_**I see you**_

_You… you what? _

_**I see you**_

_**For the longest time, I really did believe you, fool that I was. I thought you were some sort of darkness that Palpatine gave me when he took my hand. A dark passenger that would tempt me into joining the dark side and give me back my connection to the Force. **_

_**But then that Padawan touched me, and I saw the true. Sidious didn't give me anything, but he did make me doubt myself. All those things that I thought made a good Jedi, he took those from me, if only for a moment. What replaced that was a fear. A fear that I wasn't good enough and that I needed the Dark Side to be what I once was. It wasn't him… it was my own voice the whole time. **_

_**I never lost the Force, I hid it. I threw it away because I thought that in my fear, I was unworthy. But I see you now. I see it. I am no longer dominated by my fear. I can look you right in the eyes, and not let you dictate my course of action. **_

_Mace, don't do this…_

_**You have no power, because the Force is with me today. It has always been with me. I was a fool not to see it, but I see it now. It will be with me, and I will do what I must for the light to persevere in the galaxy. **_

_I can give you more power though! I can let you live through this!_

_**Death is not the end, it is only the end of the beginning. **_

_I beg you please, no… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO_

* * *

This is the story of how Mace Windu died.

His fear had been right. The Black Sun was on him quickly. They screamed at him to move aside, but he drew on the Force and pushed them back. When they sought to move around him, he leapt on them with blinding speed and knocked them out cold.

The order came from the commander to open fire, but Mace Windu did not back down. Each and every blaster bolt was topped in mid-air, hanging suspended by the sheer power of the Jedi Master's connection to the Force. The couple of blaster bolts soon became dozens, and the dozens became a hundred. Still, Mace Windu did not flinch.

Only when he saw that the Padawan's cruiser had safely jumped to hyperspace did he let go. Blaster bolts filled his chest, but he did not feel them. As he fell down and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling, he had a smile on his face. As the commander drew his pistol and aimed it at the Jedi's head, the Jedi simply disappeared, truly becoming one with the Force that he had been such a faithful servant to. A noble end for a noble knight.

This is the story of how Mace Windu died. It is not a story of despair or tragedy. It is not a story of fear or a grim darkness gripping the galaxy.

It is a story of hope sparking a bright light in dark times.

It is a story of a great Jedi Knight, and a man who more than deserved the title Master of the Order.

For Mace Windu was one with the Force, and the Force was with him.


	13. Chapter 12: Visions of a Dark Future

**Chapter 12: Visions of a Dark Future**

Location: The Great Pyramid - Interrogation Room A

Anakin Skywalker was well and truly trapped.

The plan, if he could even call it that anymore, had been ruined the moment the Zygerians took him. They were furious over Anakin's involvement in the Queen's death, and it seemed that they had believed Dooku and the Prime Minister's account of her death. After a very thorough search, they had taken his lightsaber and discovered his magnacuffs were unrestrained, seeing that it was a trap all along.

He knew he had to warn Obi-Wan, and get his lightsaber back too, but those were both things that couldn't happen at that moment. He was a little tied up, literally.

They had strapped him to an interrogation device while a torture droid hovered dangerously close to his head. He could even see his lightsaber on the table, but couldn't do anything about it with the Zygerian guards nearby.

In the distance, he thought he could faintly make out the sounds of explosions. Sounds like Obi-Wan had started the fun without him. He took just a small bit of solace in the fact that if the explosions continued, at least his friend and master was still alive.

Anakin was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of the doors hissing open and a nasty looking Zygerian entering the room.

"Skywalker." the torturer sneered. "When I heard that you had been captured, I jumped at the chance to be the one to torture you. Your actions cost me several slaves at the auction houses that day."

"I'm sure the Republic will give you a refund if you ask." Anakin quipped back. "If you let me go, I'll make sure to speak up for you."

A blow to his stomach by a guard shut him up quickly. Though he was shackled, he still hunched over as much as he could to stop the pain.

"That's just the opening course." the Zygerian chuckled. "The more you talk back, the more I have my guards inflict pain."

He motioned for the torture droid to move forward and Anakin could see that its needle was dripping with a clear fluid.

"Ah, I see you've noticed my truth serum." the torturer said, motioning towards the needle. "It's powerful stuff, and will have you singing like a bird by the time it's done. My superiors want to know what happened with the Queen, but I honestly don't care. All I want to see is you screaming in pain and out of your tiny little mind."

The needle felt strikingly cold when it entered his skin just below the neck. The solution was even colder and made him feel disoriented. It almost felt like someone else was in the pilot's seat of his body and he was a helpless passenger along for the ride.

"Can you hear me, Skywalker?" the Zygerian asked. "Is it working?"

"I think so." Anakin replied. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"I'm sure you do." the torturer chuckled. "Let us begin."

* * *

Location: The Great Pyramid - Main Hallway of Level 5

"I'll give you this, Kenobi." Hondo roared. "You know how to have a good time!"

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Hondo Ohnaka stood back to back as they cut their way through the heart of the Great Pyramid. Most of Hondo's pirates had long since fallen to the onslaught, and the ones that hadn't had long since fled for areas less occupied by conflict.

"As much as I'm thrilled you're enjoying this, Hondo, we can't keep this up forever!" Obi-Wan shouted back, deflecting blaster bolts the entire time he spoke. They Zygerians were getting closer and closer, and Obi-Wan saw that there were guards with vibropikes and electro-whips were coming down the hallway. They would occupy his lightsaber for a longer period of time, and he worried that he wouldn't be able to keep on deflecting all the bolts were aimed at Hondo and himself.

"Ah, you are right Kenobi. I agree that this current location is no longer profitable for the time being." Hondo agreed, both of his blaster pistols firing as fast as he could pull the trigger.

"Alright then, hold on!" Obi-Wan shouted as he dropped to the ground and traced circles in the floor with his lightsaber. A hole wide enough for a man (or Weequay) to squeeze through soon appeared and Hondo jumped down followed by Obi-Wan shortly thereafter.

"Floor 6." Obi-Wan said, tracing a finger over a holomap embedded in the hallway wall. "This way, Hondo, I have an idea."

"This idea had better involve getting us a ship!" Hondo snapped, back, firing his blasters into the hole they just dropped from.

"As a matter of fact, it does." Obi-Wan replied. "From a certain point of view."

It turned out that Obi-Wan's plan had them fighting their way into the communication room that resided on that level. Most of the guards and soldiers were already out flushing the pirates from their hiding places, so resistance was light and Hondo made short work of them.

"Calling your clone troopers to this fight?" Hondo asked, visibly relieved for the incoming reinforcements. "I never thought I would say this, but I would be glad to see authority and the Republic right around now."

"Sadly, that can't happen right now." Obi-Wan said with more than a hint of remorse. "The clones cannot be counted on to support the Jedi, and the Zygerians have blocked all long range communications. Nobody from the Inner Rim can be counted on to help us. We must look elsewhere for our aid."

"Oh? Like where, Kenobi?" Hondo scoffed. "You seem to be asking for help from all sorts of friends that seem none too eager to be coming to your aide. Don't tell me I am the last true friend you have! I'm honored, but I'm also angry that you put all of your eggs in the basket from Hondo Ohnaka!"

"Theatrics have their place, Hondo, and that place isn't here." Obi-Wan replied as he hurriedly pushed buttons. "I do in fact have a plan, let's just hope this one works."

"Trusting in the Force again?" came Hondo's sarcastic reply.

"Yes." Obi-Wan answered, "but more immediately, in other people."

A flashing blue light in the center holoconsole indicated that they were live. Obi-Wan cleared his throat and pressed a TRANSMIT ALL button.

"This is Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi calling from the Great Pyramid of Zygeria." he said, far more calmly than Hondo could have managed in the situation.

"I am calling because I need your help. I am trapped aboard their craft in an attempt to rid the galaxy of this menace to society. The Zygerians think they have us outnumbered. They think that good people will do nothing because this isn't their business. What happens in the far corner of the galaxy is of little concern to them."

"Well I think they're wrong. I believe that there are still good people out there who will do the right thing because they can. Therefore I am calling upon all friends of the Jedi, friends of the Republic, and friends of Democracy to come to Zygeria and help us end a slaver empire before it even has a chance to rise. I shall be here, fighting until the very end. I hope that you will join me. I believe that you will."

"May the Force be with you all."

There was a silence in the room for a brief moment after the transmission ended. A small moment of respite before a pounding began on the door followed by sparks as the Zygerians started cutting their way through. Once more, Obi-Wan and Hondo found themselves back to back ready to face down their enemies.

"A good speech." Hondo said. "I would have joined up, if I were not already here. Well, that and my love of money more than anything else in the world. Still, a good speech, if you are into that sort of thing."

"Oh I am indeed Hondo." Obi-Wan replied with a grin. "Now let us see if anyone else is."

* * *

Location: tͣᶰhͣᵏeͥᶰrʷeͣᵏ ͤisͧᵖ ʸnͦoͧ ͬeᶠmͬoͥtͤᶰiͩˢonͣ ͬtͤheͥᶰreͩ ͣᶰiᵍsͤ ͬpeͣᶰaͣᵏcͥᶰe ͭtͪhͤʸeᶰrͤeͤ ͩiʸsͦ ͧnᵖoˡ ͤiͣˢgͤnˢoᶰrͣᵖanͦcͧeͭ tͦᶠheͥrͭe ͣᶰiͣᵏsͥᶰ ᵖkˡnͤoͣˢwͤlʷeͣᵏgͤeᵘᵖ

"I'll ask once again, why did you kill our Queen?"

"I… didn't kill your Queen." Anakin panted. "It was Dooku. He pinned it on me, that's all."

His head was swimming. He didn't even know where he was anymore. Anakin knew that Obi-Wan factored into this somehow, but he didn't remember anymore. Was Hondo here? No, there was a Zygerian here. He seemed to be torturing Anakin, but he couldn't remember why.

"That answer again." the Zygerian said with a savage grin. "Ah well, perhaps you need more of my concoction to make you spill the truth."

"Are you sure that's wise, doctor?" a disembodied voice asked from behind Anakin. "His mind is in danger of snapping as we speak."

"Even then, that gives us valuable information." this supposed Doctor replied. "Look at how strong he is. This shall give me excellent data to prove how much a person can take before their mind snaps."

"I… I'm going to kill all of you." Anakin said.

"Oh ho, are you now?" Doctor chuckled, leaning down to where he was eye level with Anakin who saw one of his eyes turn red, grow legs, and crawl out of its socket. "Tell me, young Jedi, how are you going to kill us all?"

"Well I'm going to get out of my bonds, and use the droid to stab you full of that fluid." Anakin said as Doctor kept laughing while he refilled the droid's syringe. "Then I'll slash my way out of here and link up with my master. Then we'll get to the engine room of this place and blow it up. Then I'll get on a ship and fly away to leave you all behind to die with your pyramid."

"Fascinating… fascinating. The subject seems to be having some vivid hallucinations or at least daydreams about their fantasies." Doctor mused to himself. "But you're tied to that chair. Tell me, Skywalker, how are you going to get out of that?"

Anakin couldn't lie, so he decided to tell the truth.

"You know my lightsaber?"

"... yes?"

"Well I'm using the Force to move it."

A hurried gasp was all the Zygerian was able to let out before Anakin was upon him. A flash of blue light signaled that Anakin had broken free and true to his word, shoved the droid and the syringe full of truth serum into the torturer's chest. The Zygerian was a drooling mess on the floor within seconds. The rest of the attendants followed suit as Anakan was a dazed and confused blur of destruction. Though conscious thought was beyond him now, years of training and instincts were taking over.

"Engine room… Engine room…" he muttered to himself, running down hallway after hallway that filled with murky mists and haunted visions.

"Ani, you look lost." his mother told him. "You should find Obi-Wan and get out of here."

"She's right you know." said the bantha she was riding. "He'll know what to do."

"Don't listen to them!" cried his podracer. "What you really need is your ligthsaber."

"I don't trust you." Anakin told his childhood project. "You spelled lightsaber wrong."

"Then don't trust it!" R2-D2 shouted. "And get it together, you have a plan to salvage."

"Quiet, all of you!" Anakin shouted, waving away the apparitions that vanished into the mist that also disappeared mysteriously.

A room off to his left was, for lack of a better term, singing to him. It was a song unlike any that he had ever heard before. It was deep, dark, and strangely enticing. When Anakin entered the room, it seemed like a regular office for some sort of high ranking official within the pyramid. The singing was coming from within the walls, and Anakin couldn't seem to think of anything else besides finding its source.

Two quick strokes of his lightsaber later, and the 'X' that the strokes formed caused the fake wall and the vault door behind it to fall at the Jedi's feet. The singing grew louder and louder as Anakin moved closer and almost drowned out all other noises as he reached his hand in and drew out the source.

It was a pyramid, glowing red and pulsing to the beat of the wordless song that seemed to vibrate within Anakin's very being. The dark side was rolling off it in curtains of energy, and seemed to be what was drawing him towards it in the first place.

A Sith holocron. Even in his delusional state, Anakin knew that this was. He had even considered using one to cure Padme before Ahsoka had brought him to his senses and made him realize just how stupid of an idea that was.

"What are you doing here?" he asked it, turning it over in his hands as he wondered how the Zygerians had gotten their hands on such an object. Sith holocrons were rare items indeed, and most were safely locked away in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He needed to get this back there, and quickly. But first, he would discover what exactly this holocron did.

A simple nudge in the force was all it took for the holocron to vibrate slightly and open at its very top. There was a single second of peace, a small hesitation in the Force before thick, acrid clouds of dark smoke rushed out at high speeds, enveloping Anakin and forcing him to cough and swat in a vain attempt to push it away.

As soon as the smoke had appeared however, it vanished, leaving a dark, foreboding atmosphere in its place while leaving Anakin confused and slumped over on the ground.

Slowly rising to his feet and collecting his bearings, Anakin suddenly realized that he no longer felt alone. He rushed out into the hallway, ready to face whatever foe awaited him, only to find that it had become significantly darker, with Anakin unable to see more than a few feet in front of him.

The hairs on the back of his neck started to stand up, and somehow he just knew that whatever was in that holocron was waiting for him behind his back.

"Who are you?" he called out to the darkness, receiving only silence as his answer.

"Show yourself!" he cried, igniting his lightsaber as he issued forth a challenge.

That finally got the attention of whatever lay in the darkness. A red lightsaber shone forth from the gloom, revealing the outline of its wielder.

The helmet they wore seemed to be carved to outline the skull of the person beneath it while the top was a raised ridge that eventually merged back into the durasteel of the helmet itself. The bulbous optical lenses glared at him, and though Anakin could not discern the person inside, he could sense their rage.

He was tall, very tall, and the mechanical suit that he wore seemed to add to the height and intimidation, to say nothing of the flowing black armorweave cape that billowed ever so slightly behind him. In the center of his chest, there lay a control panel that seemed to regulate whatever kind of suit this was.

But by far, the most iconic feature was the eerie, mechanical, regulated breathing that filled Anakin with tremendous amounts of dread.

_KHOOOOH PUUUHRR_

_KHOOOOH PUUUHRR_

"There's something… _wrong_ about you." Anakin said, backing away slowly, his lightsaber held up to prevent a sudden attack.

He tried to peer into the Force to see if he could find out who or what this person was, but all he felt was a growing sense of unease.

"I… I know you somehow." he said at last, his face growing more and more pale with each passing second.

"Yes, you do." the figure said, through a harsh mechanical modulator, advancing slowly, its lightsaber clutched firmly in their right hand.

"Search your feelings, you know what you feel is true."

"All I feel is… is... Me?" no, it couldn't be true. It was impossible. And yet…

"I am Vader." the figure said, "but I am also you."

_KHOOOOH PUUUHRR_

_KHOOOOH PUUUHRR_

"Gaze upon your destiny, Anakin Skywalker. Look upon me and despair."

* * *

Location: The Great Pyramid - Flight Control Tower

Obi-Wan and Hondo had been hard pressed to catch a breath since their plan went awry on the flight deck. Though they had been able to catch brief moments of rest in the time that they had been on the pyramid, none of those moments brought them any relief.

Though Obi-Wan had tried, he couldn't still his mind.

The chaos of their escape was still all around them. The dying embers of the life force Hondo's pirates still possessed were flickering and their last breaths screamed out to Obi-Wan through the Force. Though his companion was putting on a brave face, Hondo's worry was screaming out like a klaxon. And as for Anakin, all that Obi-Wan could sense of his friend and former Padawan was that there was an oppressive darkness upon him.

Death had been his companion before, but Obi-Wan had never felt closer than he did at that moment.

"I must say, Kenobi." Hondo said, leaning against the wall to catch his breath as he shot at the door controls to make sure their enemies could not open them. "You certainly know how to stay one step ahead. You would have made an excellent pirate. Under my training, of course."

"I don't think I would have been as apt of a pupil as you would have wanted." Obi-Wan replied with a small grin. "Much too honest for all of that."

"Ah, everyone says they're honest until they're in front of a pile of credits!" Hondo chuckled. "You'll be changing your tune soon enough."

Obi-Wan doubted he would get a chance to make a tune at all. They had made their way towards the flight control tower for the landing deck they had arrived on, but it was one of the last places they could find safety. He saw troops running across the landing platform towards the base of the tower he and Hondo were in. Doubtless there were soldiers at the bottom of the tower at that very moment trying to cut their way in.

A flashing light on the command console indicated that their Zygerian pursuers were wishing to hail them. No doubt for a small chat before killing them all.

"Kenobi, and whatever pirate scum you are with." came a harsh voice. "This is your end."

"Pirate scum?!" Hondo exclaimed with an indignant cry. "I am no such thing! A pirate, brigand, scoundrel, all of those things I am indeed. But _scum_? Oh they have done it now, Kenobi. Now they have gone too far."

Obi-Wan just shot him a look that told him to be quiet. He was glad that his friend had gotten his spirit back, but this wasn't the best time to be antagonizing their pursuers.

"Perhaps we can settle this in the old Zygerian tradition?" Obi-Wan asked ruefully. "Single combat to decide my freedom."

"You have proven your disloyalty once when you feigned your surrender." the Zygerrian replied while his soldiers laughed behind him. "The only thing I shall give you is a slow death!"

The flashing light on the console ended and Obi-Wan shared what he thought might be one last look at a friend before the end.

He was interrupted from his musings by the comlight blinking again.

"Have you reconsidered my request?" Obi-Wan asked.

"Well General, I can really reconsider that request if you want me to, but I don't think everyone that came with me will do the same."

It was a voice that he had heard thousands of times from millions of mouths. The new speaker was a clone, but his air of familiarity with Obi-Wan made him think that this was one clone in particular.

"Cody?"

"At the ready, General. And I'm not alone."

As Obi-Wan and Hondo looked out the window, two Venator-class capital ships were descending from the clouds onto the platform. Alongside them, Mon Calamari battleships, Wookiee cruisers, and a wide variety of ships from all sorts of people Obi-Wan and Anakin had helped in this corner of the galaxy. All had come to give aid to the ones that had given it to them before.

"Are… are you well, Cody?" Obi-Wan asked apprehensively. He was glad Cody had come to his aid, but the memories of being blasted from the sky on Cody's orders was still fresh in his mind, and the tenacity with which the clone had spoken when trying to search for Obi-Wan's body worried him.

"This is Admiral Yularen, General Kenobi." said the admiral with his crisp, Core Worlds accent. "Something was influencing these clones beyond their control. They appear to have shaken it off, and they are eager to make amends."

"This is Captain Ackbar of the Mon Calamari Navy." came a Mon Calan voice. "The Jedi freed my home planet and rescued our king. I will gladly fight for them!"

A Wookee's fearsome roar was next, and Obi-Wan couldn't help but smile.

"I appreciate the gratitude, Chieftain Tarfful, but I am the one who should be thanking all of you." he said, unable to stop the smile from staying on his face. "My friend and I are trapped in the flight control tower. I'm sending you the schematics for this pyramid right now. Avoid the gun batteries, and meet us at the coordinates I'm uploading. Anakin is missing and we need to find him!"

"Coordinates? What are you talking about?" Hondo asked, a cocky grin trying to hide his nervousness. "We are safe here. Have your new friends come swoop by and take me up to that safely distant cruiser!"

"There are slaves on this pyramid, Hondo." Obi-Wan said. "We need to find their control room and rescue these poor creatures. The soldiers are going to blow this place up, and I won't condemn those poor slaves to death because I am tired."

"Good for you, have them send one of your fancy gunships to pick me up I'm staying."

"Hondo, this is really more of a two person job."

"Save it, Kenobi. There is nothing you can say that will convince me."

"We might run by the treasury on the way there."

The change in the Weequay's attitude was immediate. In a flash, he was by Obi-Wan's side, arm around his shoulders with a chuckle on his lips.

"My friend, what are you waiting for!" Hondo said, pointing to the control panel on the door that he himself had shot to prevent the Zygerians from entering.

"It looks like you have some cutting to do!"

* * *

Location: tͩhͦᶰeͭrˡeͥˢ ͭiͤᶰs ͭnͦo ͪpͥaͫssͣᶰiͣᵏoͥᶰnʸ ͦtͧheͣrͬeͤ ˢiͭsͬ ͦᶰsᵍeͤrͬenͭiͪtͣᶰy ͭtͪhͥˢeʸrͦeͧ iͣsͬ ͤnoͭ ͦcᵇhͬaͥᶰoᵍsᵇ ͣˡtͣᶰhͨeͤreͭ ͦisͭ ͪhͤaᶠrͦmͬoͨnͤy

"This is some Sith trick!" Anakin shouted as he and Vader clashed blades once again. "It has to be!"

"Anakin Skywalker no longer exists." Vader retorted, each of his blows felt like a mountain falling upon Anakin's arms.

"He was weak, and I killed him. You would be wise to do the same."

"No. Nonononono NOOOOOOOO!"

Every single trick that Anakin tried was countered. No matter how fast Anakin moved, Vader was there to meet his blade. The hallways around them were alight with sparks as their lightsaber strokes were sent careening into the durasteel that could not take much more of their contest.

A feint there, a dodge here, Anakin was clearly outmatched. It was obvious that despite the heavy machinery, this Vader was a better swordsman than Anakin, something that he had not felt since that fateful day on Geonosis when Count Dooku had shown him he still had much to learn. Vader was power incarnate, each strike from his lightsaber was a blow aimed with lethal intention and backed by a power that only harnessed rage could bring. Every single time that their blades clashed, it seemed as though the entire pyramid shook from the force of Vader's blows.

It was only when he tried using the Force against this new enemy that he realized how true his realization was.

All Jedi are equipped with an extra 'Force sight' that allows them to channel the energy from all living things to see how things truly were. It could show them exactly where to aim a blaster to strike true, or reveal the inner feelings of a person. Anakin had decided to use it to see if he could find a weakness by getting a glimpse of Vader's true self.

Rage, suffering, despair, all of these emotions washed over Anakin as the black armored figure before him transformed into a mass of writhing reddish black tentacles of pure dark side energy.

The tentacles coalesced into a human torso and head with maliciously glowing yellow eyes, but the limbs remained a pure white light that didn't seem to Anakin to be filled with any sort of kindness or hope. They were merely placeholders, an absence of Vader that simultaneously made him appear broken and much more dangerous that he would have been if he looked whole.

As soon as he looked, Anakin withdrew from his Force sight with a scream and tried to push Vader away with the Force. The dark figure barely moved. His power was tremendous, far more focused than Anakin's was and it was backed up by an incredible rage that seemed to give Vader no end to the limits of his power.

With a contempt usually reserved for errant children, Vader blunted Anakin's attack with the Force and clenched his fist in front of him. Anakin felt his throat begin to tighten as he was lifted up in the air as if he weighed nothing. Only a desperate Force push of some debris laying nearby allowed him to escape, distracting Vader just long enough for him to break free.

"The Dark Side of the Force will soon welcome you." Vader intoned as he advanced towards the Jedi, his mechanical breathing never faltering in it's rhythm. "It is your destiny. Our destiny."

That was all Anakin could take. Grunting in defiance, he stood back up on his feet and summoned his lightsaber to his hand. Though bruised and bloody, his eyes showed that he was far from beaten.

"I will not give into you." he said, raising his weapon above his head in his classic Djem So opening stance. "Ever!"

"So be it." Vader replied, pointing his own lightsaber at Anakin as the young Jedi rushed forward, only to have his blade met once again by the Sith.

Every single move that Anakin tried was countered by Vader. Even moves that he had only practiced with Obi-Wan once or twice before were parried as if Anakin was a youngling learning at the feet of the Temple Battlemaster. Thinking that perhaps this dark version of himself had his memories as well, he tried to improvise. It did him no good. Vader was able to bat them away easily.

Far from starting to even the fight, Anakin found his situation growing worse and worse. It was as if Vader became more powerful as the fight went on. As Anakin weakened, Vader grew stronger

"You cannot win this fight. The Dark Side has made me stronger in every way." Vader said after an impressive move which sent Anakin flying across the hallway where he lay semi-unconscious. "Submit to me, and fulfill your destiny!"

Anakin didn't even dignify it with a response. He shook the cobwebs from his head and ignited his saber once again. No matter what it took, he would defeat this demon of his nightmares. Even if it took his life, he would conquer this demon of his nightmares.

For that was the Jedi way.

* * *

Location: The Great Pyramid - Central Control Room

"There." came Obi-Wan's voice. "I found them. Down a level, take a right at the hallway, and the third door on our right. They should be there."

Hondo Ohnaka was getting more out of this trip than he had bargained for.

He should have known better. Trusting Kenobi was good for the soul and bad for the health. What a stupid move on his part. Hondo wasn't even sure he had a soul left. He'd promised upon his soul's eternal peace that he'd return a speeder to his friend after telling him that a lovely female had blasted his face full of courting hormones. Of course he'd sold that speeder as soon as he was out of eyesight and used the money to buy passage to Florrum to work as a pirate.

Hondo had never looked back, but he'd always wondered if that broken promise, the first of many, really had done something to his soul.

And if that hadn't then this Jedi that he was following around was certainly doing the job.

A simple job. That was all this was supposed to be. Fly to Zygeria, deliver Kenobi and Skywalker so he could collect the reward, and then he and his merry crew would be well on their way to get more drunk than they ever had before.

But of course a plan involving Jedi had complications. First his plan had been discovered, then his crew had panicked, then they had died, and now the great Hondo Ohnaka, greatest shot in the known galaxy (and certainly in the northern hemisphere of Florrum) was going to free slaves and do so for free.

Hondo was almost glad his crew was all dead. He would never have lived this down.

"Coming, Hondo?" Kenobi asked with that trademark wry grin on his face that Hondo found both comforting and disquieting.

With a grumble, Hondo set off behind whom he would begrudgingly (and never openly) call his friend. Their trip was more chaotic than it had been before, what with all the clone troopers scurrying about and Wookiees doing their very best to remind the slavers exactly why they had stopped getting their product from Kashyyyk, but he was strangely more at ease. For one, it was much easier when you and your Jedi companion with his very bright and loud lightsaber weren't the only target. And second, it was much easier to shoot someone in the back where they couldn't defend themselves than in the front where they could.

The slaves were in a pitiful condition when he and Kenobi finally reached them. Emaciated, starving, and looking up at him as if he was their last hope. The sad part, realized Hondo, is that he actually was. It pained him when they gave him weak embraces and whispered words in their native tongue that he did not understand. Though he hadn't the slightest clue what they were saying, he still felt undeserving of their praise. It had been Kenobi's idea to save these poor wretches, not his. So why were they thanking him as well as the Jedi?

If he made it out of this, the Weequay pirate promised himself that he would never have anything to do with the slavery business ever again.

"This is Obi-Wan for Admiral Yularen." Kenobi said, speaking into the comlink that a passing clone had stopped to give him. "Come in Admiral, are you there?"

"This is Yularen, General Kenobi." came the reply. "How can I be of assistance?"

"We recently freed dozens of slaves from the bowels of this pyramid, but we need to get them out of here, and quickly. I can feel the structure crumbling around us."

"I see it too, General." Yularen said. "It seems like there is a hangar bay nearby where you can take several ships back to our fleet in orbit. It looks like you won't be able to return the way you came in time. There should still be several light freighters that you can use to pilot out of that wretched place."

"Copy, Admiral. Thank you for the information. Kenobi out." the Jedi said before ending the call.

"Well, Hondo?" he asked. "Can you fly one of their ships?"

"Can… Can I fly their ships?!" Hondo indignantly spluttered. "Kenobi, there is no ship yet made that can best the piloting skills of Hondo Ohnaka!"

"But I won't work for free!" he continued. "You promised me gold, Kenobi, and I have yet to see a single bit of it! I'll tell you this; I will pilot that ship, but it'll cost you triple- no, quadruple my usual rate! No more friends' discounts for you either!"

"Excuse me…" a timid Zabrak slave said, piping up for the first time. "Did you mention gold?"

"I did, my recently liberated friend. What of it?"

"I used to be the master's personal attendant before I displeased him." the Zabrak said. "He was a paranoid man. Never trusted his slaver friends. Always kept his gold on his ship in case he ever needed to depart."

"And… you know where this ship is?" Hondo asked, hoping against hope that it really was this easy.

A small nod was all that he needed.

"Hmmm, perhaps you were right about that trusting Force business earlier, Kenobi." Hondo mused, already pushing the slave forward to lead him towards the exit. "I could get used to this hero business."

"Come now, Kenobi, get that beautiful blue lightsaber up front and center. We have slaves to rescue, and more importantly: gold to liberate!"

* * *

Location: tͥhˡeͦrͮeͤ ʸiͦsͧ nͣᶰoͣᵏ ͥᶰdeͣᶰaͩthͦ ͧtͬhˡeͦrͮeͤ iͨsͣᶰ tͥᵍhᶰeͥ ͭfͤoˢrͭcͣeͬˢ

"You have grown, but not enough." Vader taunted him as he turned aside yet another blow from the Jedi's lightsaber

Anakin was starting to fare better now. The words that Dooku had said to him on board the _Invisible Hand_ were ringing clear in his head right now, and it was providing him with his only source of victory.

"_You have Hate. You have Anger. But you don't use them."_

It was the path to the Dark Side, but it was the only thing that was keeping him from dying. He had to finish this. If he didn't, horrible things would happen to those that he loved. What if his death meant that Vader would take his place. What damage could he do to the Republic, to the Jedi, to Obi-Wan?

To Padme.

No, he had to use this power. If only for a little while. He could manage that. This wasn't his fear talking, Anakin assured himself of that. What he had envisioned would happen if he let it. This was the only way.

He would tap into his emotions. He would use the Dark Side little by little to win this fight. And only this one time…

"You shouldn't have made me angry!" he yelled as he kicked Vader right in the chest, drawing forth the first bit of emotion from Vader that wasn't anger as the hulking figure fell backwards with a surprised cry.

"The Jedi are lost. They were caught unaware and it was only your foolish actions that saved them. You will not always be there to be their savior." Vader intoned as he sent debris hurling down the hallway towards Anakin. "Do not share in their fate. Only one fate awaits you: mine."

Anakin Skywalker was no longer listening. Drawing both the Light and the Dark Side of the Force, he sent a telekinetic wave of pure energy rushing down the hallway that caught Vader unawares. The cyborg was sent stumbling back, only to find himself propped up by an invisible barrier that he found he could not move within.

Even after performing such a mighty feat as clearing the hallway of debris, Anakin was still able to create a wall of pure Force for Vader to stumble into. Now he had him trapped, caught stationary in the Jedi's trap.

"You brought this on yourself." Anakin snarled as he rammed his lightsaber through the lower part of Vader's abdomen. It wasn't a lethal wound, nor was it meant to be. He wanted to inflict as much pain on this horror as he could. He knew it wasn't the Jedi way, but these emotions felt good. It had brought him victory. What else could these new feelings bring him in the future?

"You… cannot stop your… destiny." Vader wheezed, his breathing becoming much more labored and higher pitched than before. Clearly the injury was working just as Anakin intended. "Do… it. Strike me down and embrace the full power of the Dark Side of the Force. It is the only way to defeat me."

Anakin raised his lightsaber up on high. It would be so easy. He could end this threat, right here and now. All it would take was one simple downward blow. Still, there was a momentary look of confusion in his eyes. It was almost as if there was something trying to get in at the furthest corner of his mind.

"DO IT!"

Vader's voice came like the crack of a whip. Before he could even stop himself, Anakin brought the lightsaber down in a killing arc, only to level it out at the last moment. He had taken off a part of the front of Vader's helmet, but he had done no serious damage.

There it was again! Almost as faint as the air that passed by him, a voice was calling out his name.

"Anakin!"

"Padme?"

"Ani, where are you?"

"No!" yelled Vader, rising to his feet with much more strength and vitality than someone who should have been at death's door. "Ignore her. She is beyond your help now. Strike me down and fulfill your destiny!"

Anakin ignored him, but for entirely different reasons than before. Padme's voice was like a light, drawing him away from his dark thoughts and back into the cool, calming embrace of those he loved.

The fears that had so recently dominated his mind seemed so foolish now. Of course Vader couldn't take over his body, he was nothing more than a phantom of a soul. A dark future that Anakin had avoided precisely because he had trusted in the ones that he loved. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he had given into his fear and struck Vader down in anger. There were some fates that were better left unspoken and unthought.

"Padme… the baby!" he shouted, completely coming to his senses. "They need me!"

"You cannot save them!" Vader screamed, more desperate than before, his one yellow eye glaring at Anakin with pure malice out of the opening the Jedi's lightsaber had just created. "You are too weak. Only through the Dark Side will you have the power to save those you love!"

"I heard that lie once before." Anakin said, turning around to face Vader, deactivating his lightsaber and kneeling on the ground in meditation. "It did not work on me then, and it shall not succeed now."

"If you are too weak to do what must be done, then you shall be destroyed." Vader said, stalking down the hall towards his younger self.

Anakin didn't even open his eyes. He simply knelt and tried to become one with the Force.

"Your hatred made you strong, Skywalker. Don't be weak and throw it away."

"**There is no emotion, there is peace."**

"Foolish boy, the Dark Side could give you power that you've never even heard of."

"**There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."**

Vader was getting closer now. His mechanical boots clanked loudly in the hallway and his rasping breathing was all around Anakin now.

_KHOOOOH PUUUHRR_

"**There is no passion, there is serenity."**

There was an unmistakable sound of a lightsaber igniting and the smell of burning ozone filled the air. Even with his eyes closed and at peace as he was, Anakin could still see the red glow filling up the hallway through his eyelids.

"**There is no chaos, there is harmony."**

"A weak man for a weak time. You cannot save the ones you love and you will pay the ultimate price for your lack of vision."

Anakin said nothing, for something told him it was not yet time.

"DIE!"

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight, opened his eyes and within them was a bright and burning light.

"**There is no death, there is the Force."**

A brilliant glow filled the room and when it was gone, Anakin stood alone in a deserted hallway filled with carbon scorching of a lightsaber along its remained no sign of the titanic struggle that had just occurred besides those marks and the Sith holocron still clutched tightly in his hand. As he opened up his palm, he saw that somehow, during that fight while he was spiritually fighting off his own inner demons, he had been able to shove his lightsaber through the holocron and destroyed it, removing any and all knowledge that it had once possed from the galaxy.. Not that Anakin cared one bit about that. He had won far more than he had lost today.

Darth Vader had been vanquished.

Forever.

* * *

Location: Command Bridge of the _Paladin_\- Admiral Yularen's Venator-class flagship

Obi-Wan Kenobi sat deep in thought.

The operation at the Great Pyramid was in full swing. The slaves had been freed and it looked like the Jedi's reinforcements were taking care of the rest. Hondo had taken off immediately, of course, but Obi-Wan thought that he saw a little glimmer of a conscience while they were taking their leave of one another. The entire time they had been saying their farewell, Hondo hadn't looked at his many chests of gold even once. It was small progress, but progress nonetheless. As he couldn't help but grin slightly at the memory of the roughish Weequay, he had the strangest feeling that wasn't the last he would see of Hondo Ohnaka.

He was still lost in that feeling when a chime at the door told him that someone else had arrived.

Anakin Skywalker stood in the doorway, covered in dust, looking like death itself, but still very much alive.

"I knew you would make it." Obi-Wan said warmly, ignoring all protocols to leap up and give his friend and brother a warm embrace. "I trusted in the Force that you would survive. I am sorry though, Anakin. I made the decision to save the slaves instead of you."

"No apology necessary, Master." Anakin replied with a smile, returning his friend's embrace with equal warmth. "Besides, I've been racking up all the glory recently. It was time I gave some back to you."

Obi-Wan chuckled a little at that and sat back to look at his former Padawan. Something had happened to him in that pyramid, and it didn't look like torture. The Anakin Skywalker that walked into that place had clearly not returned. There was something different about him now. He looked more sure of himself, calm despite all of the chaos that surrounded them. A mystery to be sure, but one that would have to wait. There was much to bring his friend up to speed on.

"Obi-Wan, there is something I should tell you."

"It can wait, Anakin." Obi-Wan said with a dismissive wave of his hand, gesturing to the holotable in front of them. "Cody, the rest of the clones, and the Wookiees are mopping up the streets of Zygeria right now. At any moment, the Mon Calamari will finish their bombardment of that horrid Great Pyramid and it will crash into the surface of the planet below. We did it, my old Padawan. The Zygerians will be broken for centuries now, and their ships will darken far fewer skies."

"Listen, Obi-Wan, that's great and all but I-"

"Oh yes, I'm sure you had your own little adventure down in the depths of the place. Is that a Sith holocron in your hands? How in the blazes did you ever find such a thing?"

"Obi-Wan, that can wait!" Anakin exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "That doesn't matter to me right now. We need to return to Coruscant immediately!"

"Why is that?" Obi-Wan asked.

"It's Padme. The baby is coming."

"Are you sure?"

"I felt it. Just… trust me."

And Obi-Wan did. His friend had earned that much.

"Admiral Yularen." Obi-Wan called out. "Have a shuttle prepared immediately for Anakin and myself. Our friend here is going to be a father, and I wouldn't want him to miss his own child's birth."

"At once, General Kenobi." the admiral said with a grin. "Best of luck with raising children, General Skywalker. I think you'll find it to be much harder than destroying a Sith."

"Noted, Admiral. And very much appreciated." Anakin grinned as he walked out the door.

"On the way there, you might be able to tell me the story of how you have that holocron." Obi-Wan said, motioning to the inert Sith relic in Anakin's hands. Not even a faint glimmer of life remained within it, but it still raised several questions. How had the Zygerians gotten a hold of it? Had they discovered it, long since abandoned and waiting for a new owner to claim it? Or had it been given to them by an outside party? Both possibilities were terrifying, but Anakin was as clueless about its origin as Obi-Wan was.

"Not much to say, I'm afraid." Anakin replied with an apologetic shrug. "I was… indisposed for most of the time I've had it. And with your permission master, I just want to get some sleep on the flight back. I don't imagine that I will be getting much in the days to come."

"No Anakin." Obi-Wan chuckled. "I don't imagine that you will."

* * *

**AN:**

Wow, that took longer than expected!

That last chapter just got away from me. I had originally planned on making this a two-parter, or maybe even three, but it was as if I was being guided along by the characters and they were the ones writing this story. One thing led to another, and here we are thousands of words later.

We're in the endgame for Star Wars: Heralds of the Force now. One more chapter, an epilogue, and then we're all done. They'll both come out at the same time, but that's all I got.

Not to fear though! I have plans. Oh yes… I have _plans_. There is a premise for an OT fanfiction set in this alternate universe that I can't wait to start writing. If that is something which interests you, please write a review and let me know. I do all of this for you guys, and your opinion matters to me.

If you have read this far, then I am truly grateful for the support you have given me since I started this journey in December of 2019. Almost 45,000 words later, and I feel like I still have so much to learn. Looking back on my earlier entries into this series, I wince at my poor formatting and horrible story structure. Ah well, such is life, and if I'm cringing at it, this means I've grown as an author since then. Thank you for being a part of that!

Don't hesitate to give me feedback, either good or bad. I'm just so thrilled that literally thousands of you have read and appreciated my work. That means the world to me, and I will never cease to be humbled by your outpouring of support.

Until next time,

\- Klick


	14. Chapter 13: A New Light

**Chapter 13: A New Light**

Location: Coruscant - Monument Plaza

The last few weeks had been taxing for the Republic

Overnight, the Jedi Order had been declared traitors of the Republic as their clone troops turned on them seemingly without warning. Only those who were lucky, smart, or strong survived if they were out in the galaxy. The Jedi Temple suffered no such fate, but the Jedi there were still forced to flee amongst the confusion that was gripping the galaxy.

As the hours went by, news poured in that made the citizens of the Republic more confused than they were before. Chancellor Palpatine had been killed when Anakin Skywalker had put a lightsaber through his chest. Rumors were abound that the Chancellor had been something called a 'Sith', which were the mortal enemies of the Jedi. He had set the clones against the Jedi as part of a plan millenia in the making. But then Admiral Tarkin had taken the floor in a special hearing in the Senate. He'd produced audio recordings that made it clear the Jedi had come to depose or execute a helpless old man. But how did the clones know that the Jedi had betrayed him? To make matters even more confusing, the Jedi had returned to their temple, although no word had been sent from there as to their intentions. It was as if they held an as of yet unlit lightsaber above the heads of everyone on the planet.

The people of the Republic were uncertain, and the conflicting messages had done little to ease their minds. Citizens of all species across the Republic watched aghast as new information was brought to light. Senator Bail Organa, at great risk to himself, had exposed the fact that Palpatine was playing both sides of the Clone War, leading the Separatists under the name of Darth Sidious. Mas Amedda had aided and abetted him along the way, and it was only due to the Senator's diligence that his corruption had been revealed.

There were even reports that Mas Amedda had tried to have Senator Amidala killed. Beloved by both the people of Naboo and all Republic citizens who still held out hope for a brighter future, the fact that she hadn't been heard from since the incident was troubling indeed.

It was the rumors of her death that sparked demonstrations in Monument Square. The famed location for debate and protest in the heart of the Federal District was now home to dueling mobs that were shouting at each other as the hopelessly outnumbered Coruscant Security Forces looked on apprehensively.

"Palpatine was a traitor!" one of them roared. "Bring the Jedi back, we need order in the Republic!"

"We had order, and then the Jedi killed the man who was giving it to us!" bellowed another back at him. "Don't believe the lies of the Jedi! They're all traitors and they should burn for their crimes!"

On and on it went, neither side having a clear advantage as the situation threatened to turn ugly. Only the arrival of Admiral Tarkin to the scene made a difference, restoring order to a particularly brutal situation.

"Attention, citizens of the Republic." Tarkin announced from the loudspeakers of the riot-suppressing speeders. "You are in violation of martial law. Upon orders of Acting Chancellor Bail Organa, you are hereby ordered to return to your homes. The situation is under control and you will be informed shortly."

"Informed of what? We want answers!" came a cry from a Nikito hanging off one of the statues in the plaza. An electro-blast from a cannon attached to the speeder gave him enough of a shock that he fell from a statue with a yelp.

Although the other rioters were wise enough not to climb the statues and make themselves an easy target, the Nikito's cry was enough to fully develop similar feelings many of them had over the situation.

"We want answers, Tarkin!" they screamed, lighting firebombs and throwing them at the ships. "Tell us of the Jedi, of Palpatine, of the Republic!"

"We want answers!"

* * *

Location: Coruscant - Jedi High Council Chambers

Across the Federal Distant, but all too close to the smoke rising from monument plaza, Yoda was deep in thought searching for answers as well.

It troubled him how easily the Sith had been able to manipulate the Jedi into almost being entirely wiped out. Were it not for the quick thinking of Anakin Skywalker, almost the entire order would have perished.

Many were still in danger. Hiding, alone in the galaxy, the prey of bounty hunters or worse that were looking to score credits by bringing in the most dangerous prey in the galaxy: a Jedi on the run.

Which brought him back to how easy it had been for the Jedi to fall from the height of their power. They had been the most influential order in the entire Republic, but had not been able to see the creation of the clone army that almost led to their downfall. They had been too blind to see a Sith ruling the Galactic Republic. And most of all, they had been blind to the growing supremacy of the Dark Side itself.

Even now they were blind. With Sidious' death, Yoda thought the Force would become the calm, cool pond that it had been in his childhood. But even with the black hole in the Force that Palpatine had been out of the picture, the Force still remained dark and murky, endless waves crashing down and destroying any semblance of peace that the Light Side had.

It was in times like this that Yoda reminisced about the ancient Force users in the galaxy. On Tython, they had practiced both the Light and the Dark in equal measure. There were no Jedi, there were no Sith. It was only the Force, and it guided their every action. Perhaps in only following the dogmatic path of the Light, funneled through the narrow view of Jedi teachings over thousands of years, had resulted in Yoda and the rest of the Order coming perilously close to destruction.

"Master Yoda?" Obi-Wan asked, pulling the wizened master from his reverie.

"Hmm?" Yoda asked, seeing the faces of the remaining Jedi Masters looking at him with concern. "Sorry I am. Lost in thought, I was. Continue, masters."

There weren't many remaining Jedi Masters left on the High Council now. Mace Windu had died saving younglings from the hands of the Black Sun while Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Kit Fisto had all perished fighting against Sidious. Plo Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi and Stass Allie were all gunned down by their clones while Oppo Rancis had vanished with neither lead nor rumor as to where he might be.

Himself, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Shaak Ti, Coleman Kjac, and a recently reinstated Eeth Koth. That was all that remained of the once mighty Jedi Council. There was much work to be done if the Order was to survive.

Thankfully they were not alone in their struggle. The Jedi still had many friends in the Republic, and they were still eager to help the Order rebuild.

One of those friends, Acting Chancellor Bail Organa, was attending their meeting, the first time in hundreds of years an outsider was granted such an honor. It was hoped that in an era of mistrust and hidden schemes, such a show of mutual support and honor would heal old wounds.

"As I was saying." Obi-Wan continued, "the Sith holocron that Anakin and I found aboard the Great Pyramid is strange. Clearly the Zygerians didn't have it for long, or else we might never have been able to stop them. Master Jocasta Nu has helped me look through the archives and we discovered that this was one of several holocrons that belonged to Darth Vectivus, a being that I can say with utmost certainty was one of the most dangerous Sith to ever live."

"Worse than Sidious?." asked Shaak Ti with a solemn shake of her head.

"Worse." Obi-Wan confirmed. "This Sith dealt with finances. As a successful businessman before he became a Sith, the entire Dark Side order has used his teachings to become wealthy and influential beings in the Republic. By comparing what we have in our archives with what was taken from Chancellor Palpatine's office, it is clear that Hego Damask was one such individual. The worst part is that he's the only one we can pinpoint with any sort of accuracy. With tools like these at their hands, I shudder to think what the Zygerians would have accomplished."

"Attacked by credits, Skywalker was not." Yoda said with a grave tone. "Slaves to the Dark Side, the Zygerians would have become. Servants to their new master, their provider of the holocron."

"New master?" Bail Organa questioned, barely keeping up with what was being discussed. "I thought that with the deaths of Dooku and Palpatine that the Sith have been extinguished."

"Someone had to have given the Zygerians that holocron." Eeth Koth said, a frown on his face. "The same individual that is behind all of the kidnappings of force sensitive children from the Outer Rim. I take it you sense it too, masters?"

They all nodded in agreement. It was clear that there was another player on the board right now, but none of them could see it. Whomever they were, they were gifted at cloaking themselves in shadow, ensuring that they would not be found until they wanted to be.

"Nowhere, does this discussion take us." Yoda continued. "The Dark Side clouds our enemies from us, but dwell on this too long and see the spaceport for the starships, we will not."

"On that we agree, Master Yoda." Bail said with an apologetic nod. "Though you are weakened, I am afraid that we need the help of the Jedi Order. The situation in the Republic is grim indeed. It's simultaneous collapse alongside the Confederacy has led to to the fall of order in the galaxy. Criminals prowl the Outer Rim, working their way towards the Mid Rim as we speak. Trust in the government has never been lower, and many still see the Jedi as traitors to the Republic."

"Have they not seen the evidence against Chancellor Palpatine?" Obi-Wan asked, shocked that such a falsehood could find purchase on otherwise sensible people. "Surely the majority wish for us to return."

"Your Order's reputation waned considerably during the last months of the Clone Wars, I'm afraid." the Chancellor said with a sorrowful glance. "Though no doubt done through the scheming of Palpatine, it will take time for the people to trust you again. It is why I suggest that you lend your aid to the Republic at large to secure systems that wish to take advantage."

"In addition, the political pressure from Admiral Tarkin's faction continues to grow." Bail continued. "His hardline stance gives assurances to those who have no courage of their own, and I fear for the safety of the Republic if he is given more power and authority. His change of heart when Padme and I brought evidence against Mas Amedda and Palpatine was too quick for my liking. Clearly he knows more than he's letting on, yet another reason not to trust him."

"Master Yoda, you know me, you know that I would not ask such a thing if I did not think it was necessary. Without the Jedi, we might still lose the Republic we have sacrificed so much to save. I would rather perish than to see it ruled by authoritarians and petty tyrants."

Yoda frowned at that. Not because he doubted anything that Bail Organa said, but because all of this he had heard before. Was it not the Jedi Order's involvement in politics that got them into so much trouble in the first place? Though his foresight was clouded, Yoda saw that this path could easily lead to ruin of the Jedi Order once again. If the Jedi were to survive, they must reform, they needed to become truly neutral. Just one more religious order in a galaxy teeming with them.

Besides, they had a new foe, skilled in the Dark Side, that must be hunted down. Should they be allowed to flourish because they Jedi were too distracted to search, then who knows how much blood would be spilled before they were stopped.

But that was never really an option, and Yoda knew it. The Republic needed them, and they needed the Republic. So he said nothing as he felt the doom of the Jedi uttered once again. Perhaps this time they would be saved from it.

"We shall help you, Chancellor." Shaak Ti said with a stately nod. "But only if you agree to help us improve our image with the public. The ties between the Republic and the Jedi will need to be much deeper now, and that must start with us."

"I could not agree more." Bail said, visibly relieved by the Jedi support that would quickly come his way. "If there is nothing else, I shall leave you to your business that you have amongst yourselves. May the Force be with you all."

As the Acting Chancellor, although Yoda thought he would drop the 'acting' part of his title, left the room, the remaining Jedi were content to stare out of the windows in silence, dreading what was to come next on their agenda.

"Apologies, my friends, but I can avoid the topic no longer." Eeth Koth said, with a tone in his voice that indicated he knew full well how uncomfortable this was about to be.

"There are only five of us here, but that is not an accurate count of all Council Members who survived Order 66. There is one more that remains absent. Tell me, Master Kenobi, where is Anakin Skywalker?

"He… he is with his wife, Padme Amidala." Obi-Wan said, his lips pursed together in frustration. "They are expecting the birth of their first child as we speak."

"Just as I expected." Coleman Kjac said as he chimed in for the first time. "Skywalker has once again acted in defiance on the Jedi Code, only this time he has gone too far! Marriage, attachment, children, this is madness! He must be expelled."

"Need I remind the council that without Anakin, a good many more of us would be dead?" Obi-Wan asked, trying desperately to defend his friend. "He acted like a true Jedi during his confrontation with the Sith holocron at the Great Pyramid. Could any of us claim to do so well against the Darkness as he has, and two separate times no less? Does that not at least allow for a closer look at his circumstances?"

"I am sorry Obi-Wan, truly I am, but the Code exists for a reason." Shaak Ti said, her large eyes were full of sorrow as she gazed at Obi-Wan. "Anakin broke it, and did so in a way that threatened us all. What would the Republic think if they knew one of our own carried on a secret marriage with a Senator? I wish there was another way, but there isn't. We must uphold our Code and protect our image. Skywalker must be forced to leave the order."

"No."

The sound of Yoda's cane on the floor was not a loud one, but it made each and every other member of that council sit up straighter as one who had the authority of centuries stand up and walk to the center of the room.

"Foolish we are, if we allow Skywalker to leave." the wise old master continued. "Blind we have become, to old ideas, to old way, and to old mistakes. Think you do, of how Skywalker could have been made to hurt us, but not who would have done the hurting. Spoken I have to young Padawan Tano, and informed me she has of how Sidious spoke to Skywalker. Power, he said, could be Skywalkers, power to save those he loved, if only he could use gifts Jedi would not give him. Lucky we are, to stand here today. And yet make the same mistakes, we are about to do."

"Change, the Order must, if it is to survive." Yoda said. "In the Living Force, we shall put our trust. Come, has the time to reform our Order. For survive the next great battle we will not, unless great changes we undertake."

Though he saw one or two struggle with the decision, every master there knew that Yoda was right. The old Jedi Order had barely survived, although what was left would be a poor excuse for a life. It needed to be reformed, to have its dead branches cut off so that the new ones could flourish and have a life of their own.

One by one, the remaining members of the Jedi High Council agreed. Anakin Skywalker could stay in the order as a Jedi in full standing, and the Jedi themselves were in need of a reformation, a rededication to the principles that made them such a powerful body in the first place.

Yoda allowed himself a small glance at Obi-Wan, who seemed equal parts shocked and relieved that there was one other person who believed in Anakin as much as he did. And Yoda truly did believe in Anakin. For all misgivings he had about the young Knight's wisdom and patience, he more than made up for it with his skill, his kindness, and his connection to the Force. Perhaps that is what the Order was in need of right now. A new relationship with the Force, one driven by love and tempered by wisdom.

And so the five members of the Jedi Council sat well into the Coruscanti night, discussing what this so-called 'Coruscant Reformation' would entail. Even after a few hours, Yoda knew that without a doubt it would be greater than any change since the days of Ruusan.

In the end, they came to an agreement. A new way of governing themselves and the Order which Yoda hoped would prevent the oncoming tide of Darkness, or least blunt its edge.

Emotions should not be suppressed. Instead, one must be able to maintain control over their own beings, but not through abandoning attachments. Instead one must understand that emotions come from the Force and can guide a Jedi, though they must be wary to not let them blind them and force them into rash decisions. Serious contemplation and meditation would be the way. To be consumed by any one emotion would lead to being consumed by others and a Jedi must always be there to support their brothers and sisters. They must ensure that their minds do not fall into the trap that will lead them down the dark path.

Love would be the pillar of this newly reformed Jedi Order. Love, Compassion, and Wisdom. A truly formidable combination.

As they all rose and made to leave the Council Chambers, Yoda stayed behind, for he thought that he heard a voice calling to him very faintly.

"Well done, my old friend. The Jedi Order grows stronger, and it's future more secure, from what you have done today."

It was impossible. A true paradox, but Yoda knew that voice it was unmistakable.

It belonged to someone that was dead.

"Qui-Gon Jinn, back from the dead, are you?" Yoda asked.

"No, Yoda. I am dead. But I also live again." the voice replied.

"How is that possible?" Yoda questioned, his eyes wide and his mind reeling from the implications of this conversation.

"The Force is greater than we know." Qui-Gon replied, and though Yoda could not see him, he felt his presence all around the chamber. This was no trick of the Sith or his mind failing him in his old age. No, this was truly someone speaking to him from beyond the grave.

"I am one with the Living Force." the voice continued. "And that in turn allows me to exist with the Cosmic Force which binds all beings together, even you and me. It is truly wonderful Yoda, an energy and connectedness like I never could have believed."

"And I wish to share it with you."

Yoda could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Qui-Gon Jinn speaking from beyond the Void because of a new power of the Force? A power that was both newer and older than anything else there had ever been?

It was as if centuries of stress and worry were lifted from his shoulders. Yoda knew this is where he was supposed to be. His destiny was to commune with the Force and grow in his understanding of it. And then, when he was ready, to share it with the rest of the Jedi, to help them grow and become greater versions of themselves than they once were. He could think of no better use of his time.

"Tell me, where must I go, Qui-Gon?"

"Take a ship to the Dagobah system, bring building materials. You shall be there for a long time. The Order shall survive without you for the few years I must teach you there, for it is a planet strong in both the Dark Side and the Light, and you will become what all Jedi should be."

"Thank you, I do, Master Qui-Gon." Yoda said, bowing to the room itself before walking towards the door with a smile spread wide across his face.

"Your new apprentice, I will be."

* * *

Location: Coruscant - Grand Republic Medical Facility

Though Anakin Skywalker had faced death countless times and recently purged his own inner darkness, there was nothing in his entire lifetime that scared him as much as the situation before him did right now.

Padme, his love, his wife, was about to deliver their child. It was not going to be easy. An assassin sent by Mas Amedda had given her medical complications, and the baby was coming whether he wanted it or not.

Miraculously, she had held on until Anakin had returned from Zygeria. It had been painful, but he was grateful for the chance to be here to witness the birth of his child.

His mind was racing with thoughts and possibilities. He and Padme hadn't even gotten around to deciding what the name of the child should be. Would it be a boy or a girl? What if she died on the delivery table like his visions had told him? The Dark Side had lied to him about many things, but he knew that there was always a kernel of truth at the center of all their deceptions. Perhaps this was the truth at the center of the lie.

Anakin's thoughts might have spiraled even further if Ahsoka had not been there for him. It had been quite a shock to her, to receive a call from her former master. The revelation that Anakin was married and that Padme was about to deliver his child was something that struck her to her core. She had always known that he was a maverick in the Jedi Order, but she had never imagined in all her wildest years that this was the big secret he was carrying.

Not that she much minded the secret. She was glad that Anakin had found someone who truly understood and cared for him. Throughout her time with her master, Ahsoka had come to realize that the Jedi Order didn't really satiate Anakin's hopes and dreams. He always longed for something more, and it looked as though it was Padme that finally filled that void.

"Master, relax." she said, putting a hand on his shoulder and speaking to him as if he were a startled Bluurg. "This is the best medical facility in the entire Republic. She's in good hands."

It did little to help Anakin's mood, but it did at least snap him out of his dark thoughts.

"I should be in there." he growled, his fist clenched tightly enough that the leather squealed in protest.

"Patience, Anakin." came a voice from behind them. "There is nothing you can do at the moment, and Padme will need you to be whole when the time does come."

Obi-Wan stepped through the door and moved to place his hand on Anakin's other shoulder. The presence of the two closest people in his life besides Padme was enough to make Anakin break out into an actual smile. He might not have been strong enough to get through this alone, but fortunately for him he would never be alone.

"Well, am I exiled from the Order?" Anakin asked with a weak chuckle.

"No, and you can thank Master Yoda for that." Obi-Wan replied. Though his tone was curt, it was clear that he was just as relieved as Anakin was and looked as if a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "It seems as though he has had quite an awakening to the Force. He claims that the Jedi are too rigid and we are in need of drastic reform."

"Oh?" Anakin asked, raising his eyebrow in surprise.

"Indeed." his master continued. "The fact that your attachment to Padme is what saved you from Palpatine's clutches was not lost on the council, or was your love for her when you were trapped by that Sith holocron. The council seems to be much more tolerant of relationships now, provided they are tempered with reason of course."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He wasn't exiled from the Order? His marriage to Padme was allowed, even encouraged now? Anakin was astounded. This was a truly wonderful day.

It was about to get even better, and the medical droid emerged from the operating theater and moved towards the Jedi.

"It was close, but we managed to stabilize her." the droid droned. "We cannot delay the birth any longer. If we wait for her to fully recover, we risk losing the babies."

"Babies?" Obi-Wan asked, shocked.

"She is carrying twins." the droid said as it wheeled back from where it came.

Anakin didn't even bother to register the shock on his friends' faces. He was already moving towards his wife who was weakly stirring on the operating table.

"Ani?" she groaned, gingerly lifting up a finger to graze his jawline. "Is that you?"

"I'm here, Padme." Anakin said, clutching her hand tightly with both of his. "The medical droid says you're going to be alright. You'll get to see our babies. We're having twins!"

Padme's smile was cut short as she screamed out in pain as the matron droid cooed her on through the delivery, encouraging her to push with all her strength.

Soon the cries of a newborn filled the room, as the droid presented the babe into its father's arms.

"Padme, it's a boy." Anakin said, though he could not see either her or the baby through all the tears in his eyes.

"Luke." she said, smiling at them both. "His name is Luke."

Padme just stroked his head with her hand, placing a delicate kiss on his forehead before falling back down flat on the operating table, screaming in pain as round two of her delivery began.

"A girl." Anakin said as the droid placed her in her mother's arms.

"Leia." Padme sobbed, tears of joy streaming down her face.

The twins started to wail, which drew Obi-Wan and Anakin into the room. Both of them had grins that threatened to split their faces as they approached the children who stopped their crying to look at the newcomers with wide eyes.

"A boy and a girl." Anakin said in a daze, lost in the beauty of the moment, "Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, these are my children, Luke and Leia."

As if the Force drew them to one another, Obi-Wan took Luke in his arms while Ahsoka cradled Leia. Bonds in the Force, stronger than any foe that could seek to divide them, were forged that day.

"Hi Leia." Ahsoka cooed, tickling the baby girl's nose with her finger. "I'm your Aunt Ahsoka."

"I doubt they'll be able to say Obi-Wan for many years." Obi-Wan said with a rueful grin. "Perhaps I shall be Uncle Ben for now."

Anakin just held Padme's hand as she rested her head on his shoulders. The medical droid kept insisting that there were still things that needed to be done, but Anakin assured them that it was nothing pressing. She was safe, the children were healthy, and all was well.

As he thought this, the Coruscant sun crested over the horizon, exposing Luke and Leia to the light for the first time. Without coordination or prompting, both babies giggled softly as they extended their hands to the sun with toothless grins plastered over their face. The rest of the people in the room couldn't help but smile at it. Not only were the babies incredibly cute, but they represented something that had been in short supply.

The embodied Hope. The past three years had been bleak. Wars, and rumors of wars had been ever present in their life. But these two, they represented a new hope for the world. The dawning of Coruscant's sun represented the new dawn these two would bring.

They would be a new light for the Jedi Order, for the Republic, and for the galaxy.

And as Anakin Skywalker looked out at the skyline with everyone in his life that he considered family, he felt himself truly relax for the first time in years. There were still problems that needed to be solved, but for now, he was at peace. He was surrounded by his family and loved ones, he had saved the Republic, and his destiny as a Jedi was one that would lead him to honor and glory.

All in all, not bad for a former slave boy from Tatooine.

* * *

**AN:**

Well here we are, everyone. It's been a wild ride. With only the Epilogue left to write, it's been an incredible journey, and I hope that you have enjoyed my writing about the journeys of these Heralds of the Force.

One of my readers on here (and I'm grateful for the feedback) said that he wished that there was a more clear picture about what the political situation of the Republic is. I decided that this was a good chapter to discuss what is happening in the galaxy right now in addition to planting some seeds for future conflict. I hope this allows you all to see where I picture the state of politics in this universe, and my fervent wish is that you look at it and go "yeah, that makes sense".

As for Qui-Gon's reveal, I realize that in canon, Yoda spoke to him months before the events of Revenge of the Sith (and I usually like to stay as close to canon as possible as for when things happened), but my reasoning is that Qui-Gon appeared to Yoda because he could see the end of the Jedi Order and needed to train his former master so that Yoda could tell Obi-Wan and set up the events of A New Hope. Here, Ahsoka's continued presence in the Order means that while they'll get bloodied, the Jedi won't be wiped out. Yoda can take years away from the Temple to train on Dagobah without feeling like he's on a pressed timetable. Hopefully your suspension of disbelief can carry you the rest of the way.

Thanks for being loyal listeners that have stuck with me and read this story. This has grown to be a big part of my life, and I'm not quite ready to leave this universe yet. Like I said on my last Author's Note, I have big plans for where I take this story in the future.

Please feel free to leave a review. Whether they're good or bad, I can't get enough of them. Any and all feedback is appreciated. Stay strong, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy the Epilogue.

\- Klick


	15. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

A lone ship exited hyperspace above a planet of swirling red sands and imposing mountains. As the ship made its descent down to the planet's surface, the pilot could tell that few things still grew on the planet. He was not surprised, for millennia of conflict would do that to the surface of any planet.

The planet's surface did not grow more hospitable as he entered into the lower atmosphere. Jagged mountains jutted up from the surface like razor sharp teeth that told him his ship was not welcome here. It took several moments before a suitable landing site was made clear. It was a small thing, adjacent to a temple whose main structure had long since fallen to ruin, with only its pillars remaining standing.

Those pillars told of ancient warriors, fearsome and cruel, who had once arrived here from far away and enslaved the local population to their will. On the base of the statue, hieroglyphs told of how this warrior and his companions had come from the stars, amazing the primitive people who called this planet home with their seemingly sorcerous ways. Over time, these sorcerers became their generals, then their leaders, and finally their Dark Lords. This particular one seemed to have been the one that led them all here, a man whose actions even now caused the galaxy to spiral further into darkness.

The pilot leapt out of his ship and threw his hood over his head, not only to protect his face against the biting wind and the sand that it carried, but also to conceal his identity until the time was right. Not much still lived on the planet, but it wasn't the only thing that one had to fear in a place like this.

"Ajunta Pall." the pilot sighed as he traced his fingers over the carving of one of Pall's victims, her terror frozen in time for countless generations to see.

Moraband, or Korriban as it was known in ancient times. Ancestral home of the Sith. The hooded stranger allowed himself a small smile. He was finally here. Long had he heard of this place, but his master had never allowed him to go here. He had been taught that the Sith had outgrown the need for such ties as a homeworld, for why would a Dark Lord need one if the galaxy was their birthright?

As he walked down what would have been a glorious parade route five thousand years ago, figures of the ancient Sith peered down at him as he made his way towards the grand temple that lay at the end of the road. Perhaps these Sith would have hated him and what he stood for. Their statues certainly seemed to disapprove.

Not that he cared. Their opinion meant little to him.

The approach to the temple was free of danger, but he could sense that there were… entities that wished him harm. It wasn't long before one appeared before him, a mass of writhing snakes with two beady, evil eyes that glared at him with malicious intent.

"Who dares disturb the resting place of the Sith?" it croaked, it's voice cracked and decayed from lack of practice.

"You and your masters are well aware of who I am." the hooded figure replied, his voice soft and dispassionate. The wraith tried to attack him, but with a wave of his hand the stranger dismissed the phantoms and went further and further into the temple.

"_He is here."_

"_He has arrived."_

"_What does he wish?"_

"_Is he worthy?"_

"_The Prodigal Son returns."_

The spirits whispered to him as he walked, but he paid them no attention. They were not nearly as bad as the ones that he had lived with for a decade. Let them whisper, let them talk of his worthiness, he had to prove nothing.

On and on the corridors went. The stranger did not precisely know where he was going, but he had an idea. The Force was guiding him here, just as it had gnawed at him while he sat in his cave waiting for the galaxy to cool from the raging inferno it had become. He had lost much, but it didn't matter. It could, and would, be rebuilt. What he really needed was somewhere deep within this structure.

He found it after hours of walking once he removed some of the rubble that was blocking a corridor. On the other side was a door that led to a room of what was once great significance. Twelve towering statues stood behind twelve towering thrones, six on each side of the center of the room.

Something told the hooded figure that this is where he was supposed to be. Thousands of years ago, this had been the meeting place of the Dark Council. Now, this is where the spirits of great Sith leaders came to rest and appear before visitors to their spirits' final resting place.

The visitor in question gave a deep sigh before kneeling in the center of the room in meditation. Before long, he felt the presence of several figures on their thrones. Opening his eyes and looking around him, he saw that he was indeed in the presence of the greatest sith of all time.

Marka Ragnos, Naga Sadow, Vitiate, Darth Bane, even the newly deceased Sidious, all were looking at him with various levels of contempt.

"Why have you come here?" asked Vitiate's booming voice.

"I have come to claim what is mine." the hooded figure said quietly, almost so low it was impossible to understand him.

"You have a claim to nothing." the ghost of Sidious snarled.

"I beg to differ, my master."

Maul whipped off the hood of his cloak and allowed his features to be soaked in by the Sith in attendance of this ceremony. Many of the older ones curled their lips in disgust. Dathomirian Zabraks were long associated with the Sith empires of old, but always as slaves. Never as equals coming for their supposed inheritance.

"State your claim, Maul." Bane said.

"It's _Darth _Maul now." Maul corrected. "And that is precisely what I have come to claim. I am the rightful heir to the title of Dark Lord of the Sith and now it shall be mine, along with all that belongs to it."

There was laughter from at least two of the twelve figures seated above Maul, and he saw his former master's eyes glow yellow with sadistic glee.

"You were never my apprentice." Sidious chuckled. "You were a mad dog I let off the leash when the time came. After I was done with you, I left you to rot like you deserved. You only survive because of your stubbornness and luck. You have no claim."

"Sidious speaks harshly, the recently dead often do." Marka Ragnos said impassively. "But he is not wrong in his assessment. You are unfit for this title. We know of your… generosity with Sith holocrons. What madness possessed you to give one of them to the Zygerians?"

"Allies like that cannot be bought cheaply." Maul replied curtly. "And I needed what they possessed. The Republic is about to start watching their Force sensitive children in the more civilized parts of the galaxy much closer from now on. I needed as many of them as I could before such restrictions made it impossible."

"Hiding in the shadows like a mewling creature!" Naga Sadow spat. "You are a lesser student of a great master. Darth Bane's Rule of Two never extended to you, and so I do not grant you the title Dark Lord of the Sith."

"Nor do I." Darth Bane concurred. "You are a wolf with your leg caught in a trap. You shall gnaw on it to escape time and time again, but in the end you will become weaker than you are."

"I don't think we must dwell on why I withhold my consent." Sidious said with a wicked grin. "What a disappointment you have turned out to be."

"Coming from the Sith that nearly destroyed our order with his arrogance, don't expect me to fall over groveling anymore." Maul quipped back. "I don't care if I have your approval."

"What did you just say."

Maul started to laugh. He couldn't keep it contained anymore. It was all just too funny.

"You misunderstand me, all of you." he said, stomping his foot around the tiles in the center of the floor, the sound of his metal leg clanging against the hard stone reverberated across the room with a horrendous echo.

"I did not come here to seek your permission to assume control of the Dark Side. I did not as your permission, I said that I was here to claim the title and what it entitles me to, whether you like it or not. I am the Prodigal Sith, and even death has forsaken me. Your arrogance made you think I wanted your permission, but the truth is I couldn't care less. You have nothing left to teach me except unique and wonderful ways to fail. The Dark Side is my master, and I am becoming an excellent student."

His foot seemed to hit a stone tile that had a hollow ring to it. Maul immediately stopped stomping and ignited his lightsaber, the red glow of his blade soon disappeared into the stone as he started cutting his way towards his goal.

"You dare defy the Sith?" Vitiate asked, his voice raising in alarm and fury over Maul's rudeness.

"I defy stupidity." Maul replied, never taking his eyes off his task. "The Sith were moments away from greatness in the galaxy, when my master's arrogance and faith in Skywalker led to his undoing. I won't make the same mistakes. I will destroy the Jedi Order, and I will have my revenge for all of us, and in the end I shall burn their galaxy down and from its ashes rebuild it in my image."

"Foolishness." Darth Bane spat, and even Maul could feel the ghost's fury at what he was going to do. "This is not the way of the Sith."

"Then perhaps a new way is needed."

"You were never a part of the Rule of Two." Bane continued, unable to accept that he was powerless to stop this new Dark Lord of the Sith. "Your rule will always be illegitimate. It is not too late. Kneel before us and let us confer the title of apprentice on you. The Dark Side shall clearly favor you if you do."

Maul seemed to have found what he was looking for, because with a tremendous rumbling sensation, a massive holotable rose from underneath the floor of the room. It was where the Dark Council of Vitiate's day had gathered their intelligence and directed the affairs of the True Sith Empire. There were secrets within that device which hadn't been rediscovered since and Maul was going to exploit them all.

"I am done explaining myself." Maul stated, searching for a power button on the side of the machine. "I shall reform the Sith, remake them in my image, and that is just the beginning. No longer will there be just one master and one apprentice. There are no masters and apprentices anymore. There are only the Many who desire power, and there is only the One who can give it to them."

With a beeping sound, the holotable flared to life, immediately displaying red dots on various planets around the galaxy along with strings of information concerning what was located there. Maul slipped his data drive in and began copying the data in earnest.

"You meddle with things beyond your knowledge or control." Sidious said with a glare.

"Not beyond them for much longer." Maul replied, activating his personal holodevice in his hand where he once again began scrolling through planets that would contain the knowledge that he sought.

Without a backwards glance, he walked back out of the room and once he was a safe distance away, called upon the Force to collapse the room behind him. The last thing he saw of the ancient Sith were the hate filled eyes of his former Master. It bothered him very little. It was hard to dwell on the past when the future held so much promise.

"The Ancient Sith are dead." he declared to no one in particular as he strode back to his ship. "The Rule of Two is dead."

"Long live the Rule of One."

* * *

AN:

And there we have it. Star Wars: Heralds of the Force is finished. Almost 53,000 words later, and it's time to say goodbye to our friends in a galaxy far, far away for now. Fear not, however. My plans for a sequel are starting to crystalize. This won't be the last we've seen of our heroes or our new villain. As Winston Churchill once said: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning".

Maul is back, and he's going to be an issue going forward. What is his plan? What will he do with the information he took from Morabund? Nobody knows, nor are they even aware of his presence, and that is going to be a major problem.

I know I must sound like a broken record, but I cannot thank you all enough for the love and support you have given me. Not even in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever be able to write something this successful (no matter how minor that success might be) and I owe it all to you. I've been bitten by the writing bug, and it's all your fault!

Your support is appreciated, so hang in there! I will be releasing the first couple of chapters of my OT FanFiction soon. It's a sequel set in the Heralds of the Force universe where Luke and Leia along with all of their allies will have to face off against a resurgent Dark Side of the Force with the fate of the galaxy at stake.

I wish I could say more, but I don't want to spoil the fun. You'll just have to stay tuned and get ready for the release of:

**STAR WARS: THE PROPHETS OF RATHAR**

Until we meet again, May the Force be with you, always.

-Klick


End file.
